To eat languages in great hungry chunks.
Most of the time when I receive a call, I connect and wait for the other party to initiate a conversation. Think of it as nudging someone on MSN. When I get nudged, I simply "nudge" back. There's no need for words, if not I'd be initiating a conversation. By extension, this means that if someone signs in and the sign-in alert appears, I don't bother, for that is not an outright initiation of a conversation.
I like to wait.
And I have free incoming.
I received a call from some dude earlier on. It was very vague. He was silent for a long while after I had picked up the call. I was wondering "what the fuck" and was contemplating disconnecting when I decided against it. The conversation was fucked.
"Uh yes?"
"Hi."
"Who is this?"
"Kenneth. I'm looking for your mother lah."
"Which Kenneth?"
"Kenneth lah."
"Which Kenneth?"
"I'm looking for your mother. I'm Kenneth."
"WHICH KENNETH? THERE ARE A LOT OF KENNETHS AROUND."--yes, I did shout. This guy was testing my patience. Bloody hell. Someone with no common sense ought to be shot.
"Uh seriously I'm looking for your mother."
"So what's her name?"
After a few moments of hesitation (it took awhile for his grey matter to work something this simple out), he went "Uh. Sorry. I think I got the wrong number."
Then he fucking hanged up on me. Hello, that's my prerogative.
You might think I'm being unduly harsh on this clown. Perhaps I am. But I'm normally very civil towards people who end up calling my phone number wrongly, especially since my name starts with A. I get calls from friends when they're having lectures or exams, when they're studying or having sex. I listen with slight interest to all the moanings in the background before concluding that it's an accident, then I hang up.
When it's a random person I don't know who realized that he had called the wrong number, he would normally be very apologetic, and I'd morph into a well-mannered, likable charismatic man who goes out to assure him "No, it's OK."
But this guy really crossed the line. If I didn't know better, if I didn't hear the bewilderment in his voice, I'd have thought it was a prank. I am quite sensitive about my phone number and how it's abused, the last time someone spammed my inbox with blank messages had a serious case of dick-fell-off.
On an entirely different note, I find languages seriously..depressing. It's depressing because every language has its own nuances and they can never be wholly translated. Some elements would be lost and the translated version can never capture the entire essence of the original one.
In manga, translators sometimes leave the untranslated version because of puns made in the original version, followed by a lengthy explanation of the pun used by the author. Readers are often left staring agape at the wordplay under their nose, which they're left out of. Puns in manga are thus esoteric in the sense that only translators can understand them outside of the original speakers of the language.
I've realized how horribly limited the English language is. It allows people to speak to almost everyone, but it doesn't allow the speaker to understand a single shit. How am I supposed to enjoy the Millenium trilogy fully if it was never written in English in the first place?
FML.
One of the positive comments in the last installment of the book was "To be read in great hungry chunks." I did read in great hungry chunks. It took me 2 days (I didn't touch Runescape for those 2 days, that's a lot.) But I'm still left with the feeling that there's something I missed out in the book(s). And yeah. Since the author's dead I can't expect anymore, and I won't have to gripe anymore about anything that might be lost in translation from Swedish to English.
Urghhhh I want to master all the languages. To eat languages in great hungry chunks.
-- 4/18/2011 10:04:00 PM
