language, um, barrier

[jay]

Yesterday afternoon I attended a contractor demo for the FAA, about web-accessible flight obstacle databases and automated chart/map generation. The demo was fine... but one of the engineers spoke with a thick Indian-subcontinental accent. Again, no problem, my Ph.D. advisor was an immigrant... but this fellow seemed to have some problems with similar-sounding words. Such as three times saying "data suppository" instead of "data repository"...

Comments

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Oh, my. Trying to imagine what that would be ...

-J

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

*snort* at what the commentor above said. HEE!

And this does bring up one of Akien's favorite Indian-accent tales. Not a sound-alike, but a word construction error. After having talked for a while about a particular project, the fellow was discussing what would happen afterwards. He said it was the "post-cursor" to the project. :^D Hey, it's logical, after all! If you can have a precursor, you can obviously have a post-cursor, right???

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I'm sure, what with all those telecons where you talked about dry-drilling without a lubricant, you had no trouble keeping a straight face.