Are you a pragmatic failure? ;-)

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:48 pm

"___, we have some out back - we're just in the process of fumigating them. They'll be out on the shelves as soon as we know they're safe."

Say stuff like that to your customers, and you'l be singing, "Yes, we have no customers today."

This thread is driving me bananas.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 9:28 am

The Political Correctlessness of the song is positively enlightened alongside Minstrels and worse. But you wouldn't get away with it these days.

Don't quite know how true that is. I just watched the league of gentlemen on BBC prime, now I know it's not right up to date but it's fairly modern, I'll look for the date next time. Any way, in one of the scenes one of the white charactors appeared in blackface à la Al Jolson, white lips included.

There's also Ali G and endless re-runs of "It ain't half hot mum." with Michael Bates playing one of the Indians (Granted he was born in India.)

"The Black and White Minstral Show" was only taken off the air in 1978. Possiblely more sad than intentionally racist, it proved that it's possible to be bland and offensive at the same time.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 3:20 am

fluffyhamster wrote:
JuanTwoThree wrote:The point I was making, if it could even be dignified with having such a noble thing as a "point", is that "Yes, we have no Bananas" must be an answer to "Don't you have any bananas?"
Yeah, but what if this banana merchant had crates full of 'em, just in from Armadeira, Brazil, but simply hadn't had time to put any out yet. Would he use a "yes" or a "no" at the beginning of the following answer, and how would he say it?

"___, we have some out back - we're just in the process of fumigating them. They'll be out on the shelves as soon as we know they're safe."

YES! Thanks to a certain geophysicist (who told me to use Google Image Search), I can now direct you all to a link (which I'd failed to make a note of and hadn't been able to find) where you can see a lovely little armadeira banana freebie (it's the fifth picture down, in the second post by Comandante):

http://www.brazzilbrief.com/viewtopic.php?t=2426

Enjoy your bananas!

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 1:20 pm

I don't see any bananas except for the dancing one. I see a lot of spiders, though.

I think that U may need to check the URL.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 2:24 pm

Damn. And there I was, hoping somebody would at least scream, faint or maybe even express slight fear or disgust. Engaging in mortal combat with catentatives every day seems to have transformed you from a little Miss Muffet of a spider-fodder linguist into a veritable Spiderman, Andy!

But still, are you as tough as my mum? She had just sat down to eat lunch when a sizeable spider jumped out of the bag of bananas she'd bought from *'s the day before (kind of makes you squirm to think that it had been waiting in the bag for so long, huh!) and landed near her plate. It then made the mistake of sitting looking around and at her with its pretty multiple eyes for a brief second. The last thing it saw was the shadow of the latest hefty Stephen King bestseller descending down on it (I guess librarians have good reflexes from all the hefting and date-stamping they do). The man from the supermarket, he say he couldn't identify it from its remains, but that it was probably just a "harmless jumping spider".

Do you have any (scary) spider, snake, used car salesman stories (I've got some more, not all of them personal anecdotes, though).

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:55 am

Is this a case of "pragmatic failure"?

A: Why did you come to Japan?
B: I teach English to Japanese children.