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Newsletter: 28 March 2011

“Out of the blue” – “Out of a clear, blue, sky”

The unpredictable, unforeseen, sudden, unexpected.

Totally unsuspected. Not a cloud to be seen to warn of the thunderstorm to come or the manna to fall.

Just didn’t see it comin’ …

While wel know that it’s unwise to count on anything that doesn’t have a reasonable cause, we also relentlessly gamble in unlikely futures.

Whether sunny days or thunderstorms! Who can tell the future? Who can read the tea leaves? Who can consult a crystal ball?

And it’s understandable, “normal” as the French would say for the event is just that – an event, a happening,  a result of circumstance.

Humbly human. Even if we’re getting a little better at forecasting the weather, we’re ready for … surprises which have no discernable direct causes or are far beyond our understanding, far beyond the abilities of present-day science.

No matter what the circumstances are, we’re right to be optimistic.
Got that from my father. A man who preferred unrealistic optimism to realistic pessimism.

In fact, there is a pretty reliable way to predict the future. It’s in the history of our clear, blue sky.

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Newsletter: 20 March 2011

Just a little while ago, I was talking to my cousin Sherry. It was just after lunch there. And warm! Already in the upper 80s. Getting towards dinner time here.  Still cool. Among other things,  she told me about the Girl Scouts being probhibted from selling their traditional Girl Scout cookies in front of the Juliette Low House in Savannah because they hadn’t obtained a permit to do so. Juliette Low was the founder of the Girl Scouts. We got to talking about zero tolerance and … common sense.

Can Common Sense and Zero Tolerance get along?

In the name of obedience! Oh we have so many rules! So many that unless you’re careful, you might get caught, arrested, stopped, or otherwise interfered with for doing what your common sense, (pardon the verb but here goes… ) dictates!

Zero tolerance: strict discipline, absolute observance. There may be some cases in which this is appropriate though, I can’t think of one offhand but that must be because I live in a world in which exceptions are the rule. Language is like that. And isn’t language the reflection, expression of life?

Common sense is human. It’s the result not of applied theory, but of applied experience.  Sense=reason. You have to think a little, to choose, to make some sort of decision. You take the situation into consideration. You put things in perspective. There’s a context. You do what’s right.

Zero tolerance? It’s so easy just to follow, just to obey. And we all know where absolute obedience leads … There’s no choice, no decision, no difference, no exception, no circumstance. No doubt.  But there is dissuasion. That must be the key!

Common sense, on the other hand, seems to be appreciated by the vast majority of us. Bob Dylan wrote these words:  “To live outside the law, you must be honest.” Common sense. But maybe common sense isn’t so common, either.

Sherry told me that, in the end, there was such a protest that the rule was rescinded and the young ladies were allowed to sell their cookies …  Common sense wins.

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Newsletter: 11 March 2011

Eleven is one of my numbers and I can’t even tell you why. I don’t know if I was born with it and only realized it later in life or whether I adopted it because it just kept showing up the way a stray cat seems to wander close by until you finally give in and feed it …  Is it because it’s two ones put together? Because it’s neither the round ten nor the dozen of twelve? It is a recurrent number. Over and over again, I look at my watch, glance at a clock on the wall or my eyes happen to fall on the clock on the dashboad while I’m driving or I just “happen” to cast a glance at my phone …  and what do I see? This: 11:11. It’s happened so many times that I actually began writing down what was happening at that moment. Funny coincidences like getting an unexpected email message precisely at 11:11. Or the phone rings and the number 11 11 shows up. Other events. Open the mail. It’s the balance on my bank account. 1111 or even -1111.

Numbers are like that: They’re prices, they’re times, they’re serial numbers, they’re addresses, they’re page numbers too though I don’t think I’ve ever never gotten that far. The fact that this year is 2011 must be coincidence, I’m sure. Like all the others. Am I superstitious? Of course not!  You book a flight? What?!! 11 11 – Come on, you’ve got to be kidding! Check into a hotel … Room 11. Let’s go for a hike! How far? … 11 km. I give up! It’s too much. Why look for meaning where there is none?

Born in which month? November … ? Oh no! What’s this? 11 points in Scrabble???

This nonsense being said, there are a few things posted on the The Paris Savannah Connection right now which might strike your fancy.

The most recent is a geography quiz about the Middle East which came my way via Freda R.’s newsletter out of Tybee. Thank you, Freda! This is greatl! By the way, if you happen to be in India or China and say the “Middle East,” no one will know what you’re talking about … Over there, our trans-Atlantic view of the “Middle East”  is their … “Western Asia.”

There’s a link to a wonderful de-complexing article on varieties of American English by Jan Freeman; a few words about the word “coup” with a link to the Visual Thesaurus; A.O. Scotts’s look at the 1940 film classic  “The Shop Around the Corner”  as well as a beautifully written answer to this question: Can most people really say whatever they want, whenever they want, without even thinking about it

And more … like the reposting of say … tell… speak … and talk. And there’s a lot to be said about that!

Have a wonderful March weekend,

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Newsletter: 27 February 2011

Back in the 1950s, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote a play called “Under Milkwood, a Play for Voices” for the radio. In a sense, it was rather like the stage play “Our Town,” written by the American playwright Thorton Wilder.

In the opening monologue to Thomas’ play, the narrator speaks these lines:

“… You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing …

“And you alone can hear the invisible starfall …

“Listen it is night moving in the streets …

“Time passes. Listen. Time passes.

“Come closer now. Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets …

“Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers …From where you are, you can hear their dreams…”

Poetry. Written to be heard.

Do you hear the sounds, both near and far?  A baby sleeping. Distant thunder.  Music coming from another room.  We hear the invisible. We just need to … listen … to make sense of it.

Language is like that. A Play for Voices. Waves in time. Welsh waves, Atlantic waves. Mediterranean waves … Voice waves. Listen … just for a moment … You’ve got all it takes … and in fact, all the time in the world.

Thanks for reading The Paris Savannah Connection! where you’ll find a link to a recording of “Under Milkwood,” narrated by the great Richard Burton.

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Newsletter: 11 February 2011

Are you a morning, daytime, evening or night person? What sort of bio-rhythm do you have? Are you so full of pep and energy that you wake up and manage all day long without a sigh or yawn? Or are you a time taking breakfast-in-bed person who then can stay up into the wee hours of the night?

There’s an expression in English that says

The early bird catches the worm.”

The same thought or idea exists in French in these words:

Le monde appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt.”

I don’t see any worms or birds in that one, but no matter: until the opening of the tunnel under the “English Channel” as the English call it and the “Manche” as the French do, the French and the English had been separated by that body of water. This, as you know,  hasn’t prevented mutual attraction, jealousy, respect nor conflict over the years. Not to mention migration!

Or … the French-American trans-Atlantic connections!

So, you ask, what do “reports and delays” have to do with all this? The answer lies in the word which shapes our lives: time. And the inter-human relationships called meetings, dates, and appointments!

The English word “delay” means “being late, or being put off until later” and is most often used as a verb like this:
“The flight to Chicago is delayed. EDT is now 1:58.”

The French word “délai” means a time frame or a period of time and can be used in the singular or in the plural:

Il faudrait compter sur un délai de 10 jours.”
“Les délais de livraison sont indéterminés.”

Put those on hold for a moment while we think of the French verb “reporter”:  this verb can generally be translated into English as “to postpone” or “to put off.” In English, the identically spelled verb  “to report” might designate signaling something, usually negative, suspicious or illegal to an authority.

Beware of and be wary of these look-alikes.These sentences, written with English words by native French speakers could confuse or even upset you:

“I must report the date.”
“Could we report our appointment?”
“Excuse me for reporting this.
“It’s only a delay.”

All of these really intend to mean “temporary cancellation.” What might be called a “rain check.”

“Please forgive me … but I’ve had a change in schedule and need to postpone the meeting we planned for next Tuesday. Could we plan it for the following week? Just let me know.”

The early bird may indeed catch the worm … but only if the weather’s right!

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Newsletter: 7 February 2011

What’s a donut? or is it a doughnut? Both spellings exist and if you’d like to know much more about these sweet things, here a link to the article in Wikipedia. i was surprised to learn that they’re not only dunkin’ … but exist in culinary cultures all over the world. Often topped with with glazed sugar or colorful fruity, rich toppings.

Now the big question is this: Why are doughnuts in the news? Of course, if you’re in finance in the City, you’d know this right away but for the rest of us, it may bring a smile. Because it’s all in the shape … and I suppose in the airy weight. But essentially, traditional doughnuts look like … the letter “O” or in numerical terms … the zero (0) or nought.

Which is what this sentence from the International Herald Tribune this weekend taught us:

“From Wall Street to the City of London, so-called doughnuts are on the menu this season. While the carbohydrate-packed variety may damage their health, it is the wealth hit from the zero bonus – known colloquially as a doughnut – that investment bankers increasingly fear.”

Oh dear! Do I hear a sigh? About to cry? No need to fear. Just persevere. This is what a wise banker will advise.

Our languages are alive with metaphors, with images and if the single doughnut is all some will get with their coffee this year, they ought to be thankful for that but I suspect that …  next year some of them will get half a dozen bagels for breakfast …with poppy seeds, sesame or even just plain!

Keep smiling … and keep your eyes open. You’ll see metaphors by day, meteors by night.

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Newsletter: 2 February 2011

Sometimes, we need a little crash course in accents….and vocabulary.Even if we don’t need to cross borders or go very far to discover that nowadays almost everyone speaks some sort of “English.”

I spent a few days at a professional event in London last week entitled Learning Technologies. There were two floors at Olympia 2. Roughly speaking, downstairs were the people providing coaching and training services and upstairs were the people promoting their technological know-how.

Many of the “products” have similar goals. They are like packagings for corportate content. As with shelf space, elearning has its visual limits defined by the space of a screen and the designers, graphic or instructional, promote their techniques for making the screens as attractive, efficient and as captivating as possible.

I met some very interesting people and discovered some valuable services. Among them, The RADA, (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) offers executive training. I’m firmly convinced that this would help more than one of my readers … and not just those in Europe!

As for instantaneous coaching … I thought that a company called Coaching On Call was quite innovative. Call a coach? Get your ideas clear!

Others offered short courses in cross-cultural training: getting to know how to do business around the globe: Russia, Japan, the USA … even the UK and … France. If you’re interested in knowing more, you know what to do.

BTW, before I forget, this letter was going to be about accents. London has so many! There’s the occasional British one, frequent Irish ones, not to mention Polish, Russian, Ukranian, Middle Eastern, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Korean plus some … Canadian, American and French.

All of which are now documented at the British Library’s exhibition called Evolving English...right next to where the Eurostar pulls in … at St. Pacras.

Enjoy it. There were mostly Britons at the Library. And there’s a wonderful bookstore there … as well…where English is spoken with a beautiful English accent.

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Newsletter: 20 January 2011

Every single language coaching session is unique. Year after year, I’ve been working with professionals who need, or who feel the need, to be more fluent in English.

Whether they need to improve their pronunciation so that it’s not too taxing for their listeners or whether they need to brush up on syntax and grammar or whether they need to improve their vocabularies, one thing is true: no two individuals are identical. Language is just that: individual.

When you look at others in your daily environment or in public, you’d be pretty surprised to see any two people look exactly alike, dressed exactly alike, walking and talking exactly alike … if you did, you’d think they were robots!

Most of us wear the same types of clothes from head to foot – yet with an infinity of styles, textures, materials, colours, shapes and sizes. Some neat, formal, fine, high fashion … some very original, others more casual, sometimes we wear unidentified “uniforms”: syles according to our jobs, our professions. Some fit … others don’t or are out of place for the occasion.

Your language is like the clothes you wear. It’s YOUR language. Your words, put together coherently … or casually, formally, young or not-so young, attractively, sexy or mysterious! Your stye. Changing according to your mood, yet constant from one season to the next.

Your vocabulary is your wardrobe.
Your grammar is your style.
Your pronunciation is how you appear to others.

Right now, clothes are on sale all over Paris. Time to restock your wardrobe!

Once you’ve done that … I can help you with the rest.
Coaching you in YOUR style … of English.
You are unique. So …
Go for it!

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Newsletter: November 18, 2010

Success.

This word is so frequent that if you google it (yes, to google is a verb… google … googled … have googled … googling … ) here’s what you’ll find:

success: 247 000 000

But what about the opposite, the antonym, failure? What’s your bet? more? less?

Here’s what I got: 117 000 000 … less than half!

I’m not sure that there are any conclusions to be drawn from this other than … the concept is a pretty popular one!

What’s success then? Is it winning a battle in the larger context of war? And failure … would it be losing?

Neither success nor failure are fixed and stable and forever. Such very relative states they are! There are a number of other very valuable words which describe these … ways of reaching an objective. One of the real, concrete ones might be …

breakthrough (20 100 00): a word which gives us a feeling of accomplishment, of achievement of one of the steps on the way … to success; breakthrough … overcoming an obstacle … or what seemed to be one until we’ve gotten past it. By the way, the opposite might just be … breakdown!

Milestone (25 600 000), a concrete step in progress…like the discovery of antibiotics or an event that measures progress, a specific and identifiable marker on the way to a destination. Perseverance is the road to the next milestone.

Success is like knowledge … We are always looking for where it’s hidden … What’s the secret to success? This is a question Albert Einstein answered. He said something … long before we had access to Google … but it still remains true today:

“Know where to find the information and how to use it – That’s the secret of success” And let’s not concentrate on the antonyms …, at least not today!
Good luck in all your postive endeavors!
Thanks for reading today’s Paris Savannah Connection.

Mark
PS. This feels like a real breakthrough …

Newletter November 18, 2010

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Newsletter du 27 septembre 2010

When I first began teaching English in France, I heard an expression I had never encounterd before: False Friends. What in the world could that mean? Only a Frenchman studying English would know … that he meant word look-alikes or even worse, imposters or traitors!

There are quite a few words which, in French and in English, have the same or similar spellings, maybe the same roots, maybe even similar pronunciations but which are not used in the same ways in the two languages.  As with wild mushrooms … some look-alikes … are dangerous.

If you hear a Frenchman say “actually” in English … you can be suspicious. The word slips into a sentence easily and isn’t illogical in most cases. If the Frenchman knows that the word means “in fact” and he uses it that way … that’s fine. BUT if he thinks that “actually” is the faithful translation of the French word “actuellement” … we’re mistaken and into … look-alikes: A fair translation of the idea of “actuellement” would be “now, at the present time.”

Not just two words but two different concepts.

The French word, actuel, expresses a concept in TIME; the English word actual expresses the concept of fact, of ACCURACY.

The same is true of the look-alike “eventuel” and the English “eventual.” The French word means … perhaps, maybe, possibly, could be, might be … The concept behind the word: what about … non-committment ?

And the English word “eventual” ? Sooner or later we’ll get to that one … when we’re into the concept of time … we’ll get there …. gradually.

Misunderstandings are born of … assumptions. Beware of look-alikes!

Tip of the day: In order to avoid misunderstandings, ask questions!  Just to confirm what you think you understood. It’s very … economical.

Fortunately … “false” friends aren’t the only kind … There are real and sincere friendships too, with long and deep roots, including one that is called Franco-American.

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