Job Discussion Forums

Twisting in the Wind · Joined: 20 Oct 2003 Posts: 571 Location: Purgatory

Maybe this conversation belongs in the General Latin American forum. We Spanish speakers didn't mean to hijack the thread. Embarassed

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

I didn't figure out 'gyp' either until adulthood. Not a very large Gypsy community running around the Ottawa Valley to be sure. I'm sure some Brits could pipe in here on some expressions they have regarding pikers and maybe c*ckney?

I agree on racism being an issue of intent rather than the words uttered. A lot of kids her pick up the word '*beep*' from music from the US. Without the cultural background, the word doesn't mean anything more here than 'guey' does now.

It took me some time to get used to being called 'guero'...randomly and frequently by passing strangers. I took offense at first, but now know it's just a Mexican thing to do.

I asked my wife about the phrase trabajando como un negro para vivir como un blanco She agrees that it's very old in Mexico, referring to slave Moros doing all the physical work for the white Spanish, but she also says it carries no racial meaning now. In fact, she noted it's irony as most Mexicans are now mixed descendants of black, white, and indio.

EDIT: To the Censor. Sorry...not sure what gets a *bleep* and what doesn't. I hope you know this is a fairly academic discussion and not a flame thread.

Ben Round de Bloc · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1946

guty · Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 365 Location: on holiday

Ben,
reminds me of the Autrian F1 driver. Niki...............
Lauda?
NIKI
Lauda?
Niki
etc

Paul John · Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Posts: 52

Some time ago a colleague of mine came into the teacher's room after his writing class and reported that one of his students defined plagiarism as the act of spreading disease.

You have to give the student an 'A' for effort, I reckon. Very Happy

some waygug-in · Joined: 07 Feb 2003 Posts: 339

Somewhere back in the annals of this thread, people were talking about derogatory words for white people. I'm not sure if this qualifies, but here goes:

In northern Saskatchewan, where the native language (of the real native Canadians) is Cree, they say something like "moonias" (moon eee asss)
for a white man, and "soonias" for money.

Not being an expert in the Cree language I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the above, it was just told to me by some cree boys I was working with one summmer.

I had heard the 2 words many times and I was curious what they meant, so I asked, "What is soonias?" "Money", they replied. "And what is moonias," I then asked? You!!!!!!!! they replied with uproarious laughter. Rolling Eyes

I am not sure that it is a real Cree word, or perhaps something of a mix with English where I think you can guess what the meaning would be.

So ended my enquiries into the Cree language. Embarassed

yaramaz · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject:

One of my business students was trying to explain to me about needing a Lawyer of Evil in meetings in order to prevent things from stalling in yes-men. That would be a Devil's Advocate to us folk but in Turkey an avuka is a lawyer and thus, conclusions were logically drawn. I actually quite like the new term and have taken to using it.

Lynn · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 696 Location: in between

Deconstructor · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 775 Location: Montreal

I was on an outing once with my students. It was a beautiful sunny day and the Montreal Jazz Festival was on.

Suddenly one of my students said to me, "F*ckus, teacher, f*ckus. My favourite". Astonished I looked at her. She was pointing to a shiny brand new car on a platform up for lottery. It was a Ford Focus.

eslHQ · Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 43 Location: Korea

I love these stories!

Just the other day I was coming into a class of 11 year olds to replace the teacher. One of the very sweet, little boys waved to the woman I was replacing and said, "Go to hell, teacher". He had a big smile on his face and he just thought we was being nice.

We took him out in the hall and he ratted out his older brother, saying he learned the word from him. Later that week I had a talk with the older brother when he told one of his classmates to "Go to hell.".