User Comments - Grambers

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men

Yeah, I'd agree that such a stance is still on the liberal side of the debate, but yet I fear that it may still annoy the 'gay rights' hardcore. Was careful to avoid saying that I was FOR or AGAINST 'gay marriage'. Affording all within any given society the protections of the law of that society seems to me to be a basic issue of fairness, but calling homosexual pairings 'marriage', with the fathomless religious, cultural, historical baggage inherent in the word, might, to my mind, be a step too far (though it's not something I'd dwelt on deeply as it's not a particularly big issue in the UK, outside the Anglican sphere that is). Leave aside semantics, in terms of the substance though, yeah, I'd say I'm probably a liberal on the issue.

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men

I thought 访谈 was translated as 'interview'. An 'interview' is obviosly a form of discussion. Could anyone say precisely what kind of contexts the word is best used in (assuming kind poddies forgive me for my outrageous comment above) 

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men

For no other reason that to balance, ever-so-slightly, the general liberal bias of both the dialogue and the discussion thread, can I rabble rouse by pointing out the ludicrousness of this line from the dialogue:

我们的传统文化重视结婚和生育了

Can anyone here name a single culture which does not place huge importance on marriage and children? And why might this be? Because our clever ancestors figured out a long, long time ago that if they didn't get married and have children, they'd not have a culture to cultivate for very much longer. 

This isn't really to take a position on the whole gay rights debate. It is to point out a fundamental pillar of any discussion on the issue which is, often for reasons of political correctness, ignored. Insofar as anyone has 'rights', gay people should have the 'right' to enjoy the full protections of the law as it is applied to heterosexual folk, and the right not to be abused by bigots and idiots. However, to suggest that to 'have kids' or to 'not have kids' is an equal 'lifestyle choice' is to ignore the facts of human biology, alas. All cultures demand marriage and kids because, 1) they want stable socieities and 2) they want their societies to persist.

C'mon then, let the abuse rain down then.... 

Posted on: New Traffic Regulations

除了这两个，在路边乱拆了又建大楼的地方政府贪官也好多。

Posted on: Everything is Entirely Complete

Gotcha, thanks Vera. However - and sorry for asking - are you 100% sure about that? Your use of the word 'think' has got me wondering whether this is your opinion, or an absolute RULE of Chinese grammar.

Posted on: No Tip?

Aha, but tipping DOES result in mass confusion here in the UK. We are, like China perhaps, in the midst of a revolution in cultural habits (albeit on SLIGHTLY smaller scale) where we seem to be importing US tipping habits while retaining our inability to actually ever complain about poor service (one of the funniest cartoons in the 'How To Be English' book features a couple at a posh restaurant going through a series of frames where they disparage the fact their food is cold, stale and home to several flies but when the waiter comes over to ask how everything is in the last frame, they beam and tell him everything is absolutely wonderful, thank you) - meaning that, more often than not, we get screwed twice over. Best stay in and make soup!

Posted on: No Tip?

At the risk of mixing up topics and annoying, basically, everyone, I think it's worth venturing that cognitive dissonance seems to be at work in the mainstream US mentality to tipping and guns.

The US tipping system works because, in defiance of logic and the virtues of having a proper business plan, customers - a notoriously selfish, promiscuous and pompous species - can be trusted to be decent, and do the right thing, and leave some change to support poor, helpless service staff. But everyone needs to carry guns cos nobody can be trusted not to try and seize power (or the lawnmower from your garage) and take over the government etc.etc. When did people become both so good, and so bad nasty, all at the same time?

Sorry....perhaps a stretch.

Still, the reason I began thinking on this is that the word 'tyranny' cropped up in my mind when I read this thread. I regard the US service culture as tyrannical. I love US restaurants, and US food, but I HATE the confusion, and guilt and lack of clarity associated with tipping. The basic notion of tipping seems reasonable, and is much like the bonus culture in, say, banking. You do something brilliantly, go over and above the call of duty, so get some small reward by way of thanks. However, in US restaurants, like global investment banks, what happens is that regardless of what kind of service you deliver, you get cash. Lovely, crisp cash.

I've yet to hear a decent argument against the simple notion of giving a tip if the service has been outstanding (I'd suggest a humble 10% is more than adequate), and giving nothing if the service has been only standard, or worse. I know from previous conversations with European friends that they regard the Anglo-American tipping culture as ludicrously obsessed with percentages and precise values. The common culture down in Spain, apparently, to round up the bill, so if the bill comes to 51.50, the waiter gets a large tip, if its 59.50, they get unlucky! The key to this working, though, is for the restaurateur to actually pay their staff in the first place.

The mid-90s proto-nu-metal-alt-grunge US band 'Live' did a song about this issue, I believe. It goes a little something like this:

Come on baby leave some change behind

She was a b*tch, but I don't care

She brought our food out on time

And wore a funky barrette in her hair

Come on baby leave some change behind

She was a b*tch but good enough

To leave some change

Everybody's good enough for some change

The girl's got family

She needs cash to buy aspirin for her pain

Everybody's good enough for some change

Some *funky* [word may not reflect actual song lyric] change

I don't know if there's been some deflation in the aspirin market but, last time I looked, aspirin only cost about 19p (30c) a packet, so I wasn't entirely convinced by Live's argument and, to this day, continue to tip along my old curmudgeonly lines.

Posted on: Everything is Entirely Complete

嗨，Connie。我想darkstar94原来的问题跟你回答的有点不一样。我试试用汉语来表达他的本意。他问，无论一个名词的量词平时是什么，‘家’也好，‘条’也好，‘篇’也好，在把‘整’放在量词前面的情况下，原来的量词都会变成‘个’，是吗？

希望你能看懂我的意思!?:)

Posted on: The Mysterious Metric System (Part 1)

Is this a good time to admit that I never remember which one is 'metric' and which one 'imperial'. Which one has the pounds and ounces? This is the one the UK has historically used - and still uses to a large extent - but I have renounced it and now only ever weigh myself - and others - in kilos.

That said, I've always found it interesting that though the US and UK (largely) unite around the same system of weight measurement, we manage to divide again over the issue of whether the primary unit should be 'pounds' or 'stone'. We used 'stone' in the UK which (I think) equates to 14 pounds. Either way, because nobody is that familiar with how to easily divide, or multiply by 14, an American telling a Brit that he is 200 pounds, and a Brit telling an American that he weighs 11 stone will generate the same blank stare.

C'mon, you gotta admit, it IS quite mysterious (even more so when you factor in the Chinese measures which anli1520 very eruditely cites)

Posted on: 美国校园枪击案

Vera 或 Connie 也行!:)

顺便说，我今天才发现媒体课程的网页有崭新的选项卡，真好！谢谢你们，创新得不错！：）但还有一个问题。为什么没有通知用户有这个新的功能？要不是偶然碰到，我就不会知道。