(no subject)

Hahahaha, my Linguistics and the English Language professor is _British_. But apparently he's been here for a while so his accent is sort of only halfway there, which makes it even more difficult to understand. But he's a _riot_. Which is hilarious in and of itself, because when he first walked in and was plugging his laptop in, etc., he seemed like the geekiest geek I've ever seen. He was wearing a short-sleeved plaid button-down shirt, has glasses, and a receding hairline that's mostly hidden by what could be considered bangs (not quite a combover, but give him ten years or so, and it will be). And he just seemed... mousy. But once he got into the swing he's really quite engaging and funny.

Now, the ironic thing is that normally it would be super-cool to have a Brit teaching an English class. But in this particular one, where we're talking about language and language use and phonetics... This is American English we're studying, of course, which he doesn't speak. But I'm sure we'll all find a way to work through it. I can already tell that _this_ is the class I should have taken instead of Intro to Linguistics. Like, *gasp* we actually have a real textbook, and are going to learn the IPA and everything.

Oh, but yes, him being funny. As he was talking about the differences between British and American English (slight tangent from phonetics and phonology), he told us that once while he was teaching at the University of Arizona, a male student came up to him and asked, "Can you teach me to talk like you? 'Cause chicks dig it." (srsly, can you imagine someone saying "'cause chicks dig it" in a British accent?) He said, "Of course, I did not teach him how, because I figured I didn't need that kind of competition." With a totally straight face.

And his example for ungrammatical syntax was a line from Yoda, whom he described as, "an oriental... Japanese sword-master, sort of esoteric sage... dude... thing."

Ah, this is going to be so much fun.

(no subject)

Hahahaha, my Linguistics and the English Language professor is _British_. But apparently he's been here for a while so his accent is sort of only halfway there, which makes it even more difficult to understand. But he's a _riot_. Which is hilarious in and of itself, because when he first walked in and was plugging his laptop in, etc., he seemed like the geekiest geek I've ever seen. He was wearing a short-sleeved plaid button-down shirt, has glasses, and a receding hairline that's mostly hidden by what could be considered bangs (not quite a combover, but give him ten years or so, and it will be). And he just seemed... mousy. But once he got into the swing he's really quite engaging and funny.

Now, the ironic thing is that normally it would be super-cool to have a Brit teaching an English class. But in this particular one, where we're talking about language and language use and phonetics... This is American English we're studying, of course, which he doesn't speak. But I'm sure we'll all find a way to work through it. I can already tell that _this_ is the class I should have taken instead of Intro to Linguistics. Like, *gasp* we actually have a real textbook, and are going to learn the IPA and everything.

Oh, but yes, him being funny. As he was talking about the differences between British and American English (slight tangent from phonetics and phonology), he told us that once while he was teaching at the University of Arizona, a male student came up to him and asked, "Can you teach me to talk like you? 'Cause chicks dig it." (srsly, can you imagine someone saying "'cause chicks dig it" in a British accent?) He said, "Of course, I did not teach him how, because I figured I didn't need that kind of competition." With a totally straight face.

And his example for ungrammatical syntax was a line from Yoda, whom he described as, "an oriental... Japanese sword-master, sort of esoteric sage... dude... thing."

Ah, this is going to be so much fun.