" [...] Every day I have to listen to someone saying that prefers the British English because they think that the American English is "very ugly." To these people, I always give the same reply: learn the British English if you want to read Shakespeare; but if you want to acquire a language with an international usage, accepted in all corners of the world as a way of cultural exchange, commerce, diplomacy, technology, science etc., learn the American English. [...]

Excerpt taken from the book "linguistic prejudice" by Marcos Bagno. ( I have tried to translate as the book is in Portuguese)

I will try to behave not to saying bad words this time, but during my rainy Carnival days, I got to read this book – a short book, by the way, about 150 pp, in an attempt to improve my linguistics knowledgement, as this author, Marcos Bagno is very well know, and a kind of Best seller writer in the academic world of languages and linguistics. A sort of Joanne Kathleen Rowling in the academic world. He is a young linguistic doctor, and he writes also linguistics novels, often read by college students and discussed during the classes and lectures. Well, this is not a review of the book I read during my so nice carnival holiday, but just a refutation on what has been said in the book, in this paragraph in particular.

Honestly, I feel sorry for those people to whom M. Bagno gave this "so wise and w/o prejudice" advise.

Poor students... This is a tremendous nonsense! The Doctor should have completed his so wise remark about the differences in American and British language by saying that the Australian English is good for those who want to study the life of kangaroos, or maybe, spend some time in New Zealand and study the quotidian of the Maoris tribe people. Also, he should have said as well that the Nigerian English are for the ones who intend to read a book on petroleum, or maybe got to know the musical productions of that country.

For this doctor, commerce, technology, diplomacy, science and even CULTURAL EXCHANGE is something that is only possible in American English. So, I believe that for those born in UK, they might have special classes in school to learn the American English, otherwise, poor brits, they wouldn’t be able to study the sciences, also, do commerce, international, and worst of all, they wouldn’t be able to exchange culture!!!

Frankly, Dr. Bagno, you should carry on talking about PORTUGUESE, and please, don’t dare writing about any other language, especially if you don’t know anything about them. You spent about 150 pages of your book talking about prejudice between Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese from Portugal. However, with this paragraph, you sank in the ocean of prejudice, opposing the ideas you had supported so far. One thing I am sure now... The academic world is full of people who thinks that the fact of studying so much and reading so many books, think that they can rule the world with their theoretical suppositions, forgetting many times, the world is not portrayed accurately inside the books, and if for one moment they put their books aside and live the world as a change, they wouldn’t be considered for many people – like me, a bunch of wankers. (sorry, but it really got on my nerves this silly paragraph)

Bye for now. Enjoy the sun outside.

Im back!

Heya!

Well, after these 4 days away, enjoying the view of the rain drops on the ponds, and listening to the strong winds, bringing more heavy clouds, being just 30 metres far from the beach, wishing to be a magician and have the power of changing the awful weather in the February carnival Season, I am back, finally for good now, or at least, until the next holiday, which will be Easter, in April.

Having as a entertaining the Tv set of the beach house of my friend, and some beers in the fridge, nothing else left to do apart from drinkin’em and watching Tv.

By the way, this carnival i beat the record of carnival Parade watching. In Rio there were 14 samba schools, divided in 2 days, 7 on Monday, 7 on Sunday. Plus the smaller ones. Each school takes about from 60 to 90 minutes to complete the parade, with each one around 3,000 to 4,000 people participating. So, as i have watched the 14 parades, i can say that i have watched 18 hours and 20 minutes of carnival parade and I have seen about 49,000 carnaval people. Phew!! I should be included in the "Guiness Book of records’! haha

The beach is really nice, although we had a shy contact. I got to step on it only on Tuesday, when the rain seemed to have a small break – very short break, as after 2 hours, we had to leave the beach, due to the rain.

It is funny how this clausure thing makes us pay attention to things i have never given a shit. For example, after these 4 days inside a house, i got to learn that the ants really walk in lines, queues, and they do carry things which are thousand times bigger than they bodies. Also, that if u try to place something really sweet near that queue, thinking that u will mess with their such organized line, u come with a surprise taht they do form other queue, with other ants, but they do not leave their preview queue... amazing discovery!

Well.. My comp is kinda crappy tonight. I have tped this end 3 times already and lost the writing due to the endless reboots i had to make. Gosh! So, tomorrow i write more..that is it.. crissy, carnival 2004.