Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Enbrethiliel's Meme

Dragged from hibernation again! I'd like to thank Enbrethiliel for tagging me...

Ten Honest Facts About Meredith


1. I will happily spend half an hour staring into space and morphing words into rhymes and pararhymes: "Flick, fluke, flake, flock... shock, walk, knock, lock... luck, lack, like, Luke..." and so on ad nauseam.

2. I have referred, in a poem, to eyes as "orbs." (Once. When I was thirteen, people.)

3. Until I got to high school, I had a phobia of foreign languages. I seriously thought I was incapable of learning another language. Which proves that there's hope for all of us.

4. My knowledge of macrons in Latin words is imperfect. For instance, I always thought that "rosa" has a long O, and it doesn't. And now I have to make sure that my students put macrons in the right places. Ei mihi!

5. I avidly follow fashion blogs like The Cherry Blossom Girl and The Glamorous Grad Student.

6. If I go with people to a restaurant, I'm always the last person to finish eating.

7. When no one else is listening, I read Virgil with 90% ecclesiastical pronunciation.

8. I still like Philip Pullman, even after The Amber Spyglass. Even though he's trying to build an army of anticlerical zombie children. (Can I come along, as long as I don't have to sing the Marseillaise?) I and a Certain Friend still talk about what our daemons would be, if we had them.

9. I didn't have a boyfriend in high school. I was too deeply absorbed in my relationships with old, dead poets.

10. (This last is for Enbrethiliel) My Little Pony was an alright cartoon, but Rainbow Brite was the bestest ever! I haven't heard the theme song for years, but if I did, I'd get chills.


Whom should I tag? I think most of our circle has already been tagged... Well, if you're reading this and it appeals to you and you haven't done it yet... consider yourself tagged!

10 comments:

Thomas D said...

Brava for #7! Ecclesiastical pronunciation rocks!

some guy on the street said...

If anticlerical is the worst you can throw at the Pullman Plot... oh, well, maybe I should read some before I get all sanctimonious or whatever I'm being.

But what I *really* want to know is whether the 90% is a well-defined portion, or does the 10% wander about amongst the available phoneme options? Because I've developed an embarrassing habit, when praying the "Benedic Domine, nos et haec...," to use a stop "g" in "largitate" instead of a fricative. Maybe that'll be Honest Fact number 3.

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Thanks for picking up the meme, Meredith! =D

On #6: I am always the first to finish eating. This is what comes from having a grandfather who is a retired brigadier general: all meals must begin and end on time!

On #10: I wasn't really a big fan of My Little Pony; it's just fun to give my tutees Pony names! =P I vastly preferred G.I. Joe, Visionaries, and . . . Jem!. Oooooh, that last bit is embarrassing, aye?

some guy on the street said...

Yeah, I'm the last to choose what to eat. Decisions do not come easily...

Meredith said...

"But what I *really* want to know is whether the 90% is a well-defined portion, or does the 10% wander about amongst the available phoneme options?"

I think it wanders a bit! Sometimes I do a hard 'c' or say ae as in 'high' and not as in 'hey'... but my 'v' is always an English 'v', not a 'w'. I don't know why, but that 'w' sound is my least favorite sound in the Latin alphabet. I'm truly stuck on my 'v's.

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Some Guy: I'm the first to choose what to eat. It's embarrassing in its own way!

some guy on the street said...

enbrethiliel: sounds like a *solid blessing* from my side of the fence.

others: yay! hereditary britons like me aren't weeny, weedy, weaky! And, oh yes, 10 honest things; thanks for the un-tag.

Santiago said...

If you don't get the macrons right, then how can you scan accurately?

Meredith said...

Well, it's actually *from* scansion that we know where the macrons go... reading hexameters and other regular sorts of meters actually helps me remember the longs and shorts. But with iambic senarii, I'm toast. I can't feel them at all.

Sheila said...

It is sad to be a Latin teacher, forced to be a stickler for macrons, and not have any idea where they go. Hey, they're not in any of the texts I read -- when would I finally pick them up, after all this years? So I tell the kids, "Learn 'em now, or you'll be my age and wishing you had."