Slightly in response to the previous post...

I'm a native American English speaker who's emigrated to the UK, and time-telling in the two different countries occasionally gets tricky. "Half ten" has already been mentioned, but try this on for size:

10:15
American: "quarter after (ten)"
British: "quarter past (ten)"

10:45
American: "quarter of (eleven)"
British: "quarter to (eleven)"

10:30
American: "ten-thirty"
British: "half ten", "half past (ten)"

"Quarter after" my Brit friends have no trouble understanding (although one of them once did say, "What a curious way to tell the time!" He was a bit camp, though.). "Quarter of" they find completely incomprehensible ("....sorry, I'm too tired today to deal with American time.") and I generally have to "correct" myself to British usage.

So here's a question: anybody know where these differences come from, and whether they're recent or not? And how did we end up with the preposition of in the States? I mean, isn't quarter of ten, like.... 2:30?

EDIT: I very stupidly listed the pronunciation of 10:45 in British and American English as 'quarter of (ten)' and 'quarter to (ten)'. It is, of course, 'quarter of (eleven)' and 'quarter to (eleven)'. It's fixed now.

EDIT 2: My point with 10:30 was more that in American English there's no alternative to 'ten-thirty'; we never say 'half past ten', for example.

Hello everyone here!

My name is Michelle, and feel free to friend me or be added to my journal as a friend...I have a lot of interests. Other things about me...I'm Japanese/Hawaiian and a personal trainer, part-time exotic dancer and currently training as a domme's assistant. I'd love to have a writing career eventually.

I am an avid reader ( truly a junkie...without books, I could not exist. In fact it is safe to say that my idea of heaven is that I die, I end up in a library or a bookstore, with cats, cookies, and tea...and lots of pillows to lean against for comfort) and found this community by searching. I belong to another book community but have been disappointed by how it doesn't seem to be very active as this one.


I read a wide variety of books because my interests vary. I recently completed all the VC Andrews series ( yes, all of them...) this summer. So it's safe to say that she's among my favorite authors.

Right now, I am reading a fascinating book called " WHY BLACK MEN LOVE WHITE WOMEN" by Rajen Persaud, and this summer have read LISA SEE's SNOW FLOWER and PEONY in LOVE.


Favorite authors:

Stephen King
Clive Barker
VC Andrews
Thomas Harris
John Jakes
PAT CONROY
Dean Koontz
Robert McCammon
Amy Tan
Zora Neale Hurston
Alice Walker

Classics such as Horace, Plato, Euripides, to Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, etc

Favorite book genre: historical fiction, history non-fiction,( Civil War and Antebellum history, Confederate history, Vietnam History,World War I and II, nearly if not all military kinds of history)

I also enjoy horror and some science fiction, JRRTolkien, CS Lewis, Anne McCaffrey

Ethnic books about race and character in America, Asian American, Latino and African American
nonfiction.

So talk to me about books!!!!!! I am also going to start one called THE ART OF BEING A WOMAN ALONE: ON MY OWN by Florence Falk.

Eight-time Beijing gold medalist Michael Phelps described his meeting with Nadal in an interview with DPA earlier this week: "Actually I walked up to Rafael Nadal. And he is probably my favourite tennis player to watch and I walked up to him and I was like, 'I just want to meet you and don't want to take a picture or anything, I just want to meet you.' And I told him, 'I watch you all the time when you play tennis and I love watching you play tennis.' I told him good luck. That is probably the only person."





THEY ARE SO ADORABLE, yes, yes? Sorry LJ f-list, their adorableness has cannot be bounded by the confines of Livejournal :))



Sidenote: FWHOATASTIC 3-minute mark at the ADMU v. UE (if you're an Ateneo fan that is) CHRIS TIU, you're prettyyyyyyyyy. RYAN BUENAFE, you are so gonna get the RotYA!


Okay, that is all :)

 Title: Dance of the Swans
Author: eerisedda
Fandom/Pairing: Harry Potter, pre-Albus Severus/Scorpius
Rating: R (for language and sexual innuendo)
Word Count: 5,037
Disclaimer: I do not own. JK does.
Summary: Fifth year Slytherin, Albus Severus and Scorpius have struck up a friendship after an unlikely set of circumstances forces them together. A new mystery to solve, but who wants to spend their summer at school? Aspiring detective Albus Severus of course! And who better to solve the mystery of who's turned people into swans than a Potter?
A/N: This side story is dedicated to _pinkchocolatewhose birthday is today! Happy birthday! I'm not exactly a Teddy/Albus shipper, so I did my best to give you a little bit of everything for your b-day. I hope it's great!

This is my first As/S fic and is for the ass_carnival. Blah, blah, yaddah yaddah, we all know the drill. Right, so anyways! haha. The prompts used are: Words: boat trip Quotes: Can't Hardly Wait (Went Out), My So Called Life (Sex), Songs: Thnx Fr Th Mmrs, Bonus Prompt: A point of view other than Albus or Scorpius. And of course, this week was the week I had to have a bit of an issue with writer's block, so please excuse if the chapter isn't all that great.

Dance of the Swans Act One

Dance of the Swans Act Two

Title: Everything That Mattered (5/21)
Pairing: Caspian/Edmund
Rating: PG-13

Summary: There was always something there, some feeling that Edmund had always acknowledged. As the feeling escalates, he and Caspian find themselves swept into something that neither of them had ever dared to dream of before.
Notes: Thanks to my awesome beta xxlucyferxx for kicking my arse into gear. :)

Links to previous chapters under the cut.

( Chapter 5: 'High King Peter the Overprotective' )

In this chapter, there's a visual I couldn't quite capture. When you come across it you'll see why I used this image; that is a genuine Armani blazer-jacket. I thought I might as well make a nice "book cover" for the fic as long as I was showing it off, which is fifty thousand words long and therefore almost the length of a novel.

You can find Chapter One here.

( In Another Life 2/7 )

In case anyone is interested...I caught bits of this show on the radio last night but haven't listened to it in its entirety yet. The interviewee spent an entire year reading the OED. I most definitely have the same fascination with dictionaries and I imagine many here do as well.

This entry reminded me of a list of idioms in Rioplatense Spanish my sister and I put together right after a very exciting no sarcasm there, there's a reason why I'm in this community linguistics semester, and I thought maybe some of you might find it funny, I still laugh sometimes when I read it.

Of course it is not meant to be taken seriously. We were just having fun (cause yeah that's the kind of things we do for fun), so please take it lightly!

Alright.I've got three questions to ask:

1. What does it mean when a verb ends in ぬ? Does it make it negative?

2.Is there any difference between the copulas だ and ですbesides the latter being more formal? Can both be used in all the same situations?

3.Is there any difference between もしも, なら, and the -eba verb form?

Thanks a bunch for the help:)

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/08/ive-wiped-file-ive-wiped-all-files-ive.html

The official feed now includes the byline at the top, as requested by several people using feed readers that don't display the author properly.


For those who, like me, had trouble making out the words, here are the lyrics to "I Google You", posted by Mr. G in the comment thread to a blog post. The whole discussion there is interesting.


Many people wrote in to offer suggestions for a collective noun for Johns, most of them thinking along similar lines. Among the most intuitive were: a flushing, a trick, and a gospel.


Interesting search queries by which people arrived at neilgaiman.com over the past month: [oops nudity] - 51 hits, [community suffering] - 27, and [good omens slash] - 6. And now many more people will be ending up here for each of those.


Lastly, let's go to the mailbag!

From: John Lorentz
Subject: Sometimes Real Life Is Too Strange

Neil,

A few nights ago, some crooks took advantage of some gullible people here in Portland by posing as Wells Fargo security guards and met people coming to make use of the night deposit slot at a local bank.

"The night deposit slot here is out of order. But if you'll put your deposit in this bag, we'll deliver it to another branch in the morning."

On the news tonight, our local NBC affiliate (KGW) pointed out that this is exactly like a scheme described in AMERICAN GODS, giving the page number in the trade edition of the book and holding that page up to the camera. (They don't have the video up of the version of the story with the reference to your book--if they post it, I'll send you the link for when you finally return to good Internet service.)

So if there's a sudden surge in sales of American Gods here in Portland, that's probably why.:)

John

This is actually not the first time such news was reported here.

Title: The Comprehension Series - Part 48
Pairing: Albus/Scorpius (eventually)
Rating: PG
Summary: Beware of raging hormones...
Words: 1,559

( Previous parts... )

I was linked to this interesting game from Very Short List (a great daily email with a link to something interesting for the day - highly recommended!), in which you listen to somebody speaking two lines from a poem, and have to guess where their accent is from. Sounds simple, but I found it quite taxing to differentiate between many of the European accents!

Anyway, just thought it may be of interest to some of you out there :)

Okay, you though the last one had some wacked-out conspiraces? No way, man. This book is much, much stranger and spookier than Nymphos of Rocky Flats.

Valen is a criminal down on his luck. The companion he protected has wounded him and left him for dead, taking all his possessions except two - a secret stash of the drug he craves and a book that is more valuable than he can guess. He is rescued by kindly monks and vows to join their order. But inside the monastery, he stumbles onto a conspiracy with far-reaching implications. No, make that two conspiracies. And what will happen when the brothers find out that he has a dangerous secret? No, make that three...

This book is set in a fantasy world, but it is far from your standard sword and sorcery tale. It is also not an X-files type book - it doesn't just keep getting more and more complicated. Happily, there is only one viewpoint character and we stay with him through the whole book. This is a YA book and does not glamorize sex or violence but it deals with deep issues - family dysfunction, betrayal, addiction. The book does have a cliffhanger ending, alas, but it seems clear that it can be wrapped up in one more volume - convenient, since it's a duology. The second book is Breath and Bone. Recommended for all fans of fantasy. Four stars - I hope the sequel is just as strong.

  The Dark Knight by Dennis O'Neil
This is the novelization of the screenplay.  I started it before seeing the movie, but saw the film before I finished the book.   This turned out to be good, as plot points weren't spoiled for me.   Not too much additional insight is provided by the novel in this case.  It's going to the used bookstore.

 Austenland by Shannon Hale
Jane (naturally) is left an all expense paid vacation to a Jane Austen theme park in her aunt's will.  Naturally, chaos ensues.  Modern girl has trouble with Regency rules, typical chick-lit situation of one girl with two men interested in her (we all should have such problems) and she first chooses the wrong one to realize the right one was in front of her all the time.   This was a quick read.  I read it on a cross-country flight last month and finished it as we were landing at home.  It was cute, but I doubt that it'll be a re-read.


 

When I wrote this I told myself that I would not have this as my first entry here, but since I am in the middle of writing quite a few other things, I decided to post it anyway.

Title: Tie Me Up
Pairing: Peter/Edmund
Rating: I'll say NC-17 to be safe.
Warnings: Hm, I have Edmund tied to the bed by Peter in this, so let that be the warning.
Time Frame: Sometime before the Pevensies leave Narnia after helping Caspian win his throne.
Summary: Edmund awakes in an interesting predicament.
A/N: I haven't written this sort of thing in a while, so I'm probably rusty. This was written for chippyofyonder's request over in the Narnia Kink Meme and it is unbetaed, so if my grammar is not the best in this, that's why. Oh, that reminds me, would anyone mind being my beta for any of my future fics? I ask this because I happen to be without a beta for this fandom and none of my other betas wish to read Narnia slash.

( Peter, what exactly are you doing? )