WWQP Bulletin Board Chat

CHILLY HERE

Woke up to snow coming down sometimes and horizontally at other times. It was so much colder than last week's snow so it was light and didn't bring down a lot of trees causing power failure. The wind effectively blew the snow off a large part of my property including some driveway. However there is no more than an inch in the bad spots. By the way, Sara, my '08 Prius was just the rug under the accelerator problem so I've just removed the rug til I hear from the dealer. Obviously they have much more urgent problems. The reason I'm unhappy is that the strange transmission has just two forward gears. The lower one designed for long downgrades isn't low enough for the mountains and definitely for dealing with snow. I've been reminded of the '57 Volkswagen we had as newlyweds. Getting the engine to start was a challenge in temps near zero or lowered because we didn't have a garage. But once started you could just start moving in second gear, come down hill in 3rd or 2nd and in severe winter weather it was possible to get around never using the brakes. Because this lower gear is not low enough for mountains even coming down from the top of a pass, it isn't low enough to avoid using brakes the way it can be done with a conventional transmission. Riding brakes, and it happens to tourists here, over heats the brakes and ultimately boils brake fluid rendering the brakes inoperable.

Re: Canadian accent - there is hosse bote for house boat (that's a long o). Interestingly northern VA has the same pronunciation. Of course, having come from Long Island I don't have much leeway in commenting on the speech of others. I wonder where the use of the word hydro came from in an area where I assume electricity is not generated by moving water. It is hydro electric here in the mountains. Unfortunately, we get some pollution from the coal powered plants in Tennessee.

There is a study going on by Ohio State and Western Carolina Universities examining the disappearence of dialects throughout the US. The old timers here speak almost Elizabethan and were impossible for me to understand when I came here. Of course part of my problem wasthe prevelence of missing teeth and a wad of tobacco in the cheek. Both of those conditins aren't as prevalent as they were just 20 years ago. It's a bit sad that the old timey speech is disappearing and they are recording teenagers now. The speech in the southwest US is similar as most of those folks migrated from here. I guess there are or were so many dialects because of isolation and now with movies, TV and other technology we are probably not too far from losing regional speech. The Eastern Band of Cherokees here is struggling to save their language. Folks woke up and realized that those who grew up when the children were sent off the reservation to boarding schools and forbidden to use their language in order to Americanize them lost touch with their own culture and language. This happened all over the country. Did the Canadians do this to the native people there? Anyway there was serious concern and they commandeered the old folks in their 80s and 90s to teach the kids. There is now an immersion program in the elementary school there and the parents participate as well. There is an endowed chair at Western for Cherokee studies. All very interesting and my hat's off to them.

Bottom line, don't mess with others' culture with a certain exception of certain fundamentalists of various sects.

I'm catching up with paper around here. I just shredded my '98 tax return. No wonder this house is such a mess.

Jane

posted by Jane in NC @ 7:33 PM