Posts by Emma Hart
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I feel as though I'm being manipulated into disliking her, and I don't like that feeling
Ditto, Danielle. I have a broad streak of Oppositional Defiance Disorder, otherwise known as 'Oh yeah? screw you'. I'll give Craig props for actually being able to produce reasons for not liking her.
I've had friends in America (actual friends in America this time, not torrents) telling me how much they hated her since it became clear she would run. Stroppy, snide, her voice is like nails down a blackboard, she's too pushy... for a *coughmumble* 'Cackling' is the politest end of a continuum that goes all the way to calling her a c*nt.
But like Danielle again, I think I'd rather have Obama - because presidents don't make policy. If I wanted someone to, say, organise a large function for my family or school group, I'd want Clinton. Only I think Obama might actually GET the nomination, because he appears to have the momentum, and that's often the same thing as actually having it.
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"Why do you have such a big problem with Clinton, when she's just like Margaret Thatcher"
Wow. The breadth of insult in that statement just takes my breath away.
Hell, I wasn't a supporter of MMP, but the triennial howlings from the usual suspects about how it's too complicated for the peasants to grasp gets on my tits.
I like to explain the Australian system to them, and then point out that Australians can manage that. Mostly.
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Neil: This shows that, over a series of polls, it's probably too close to call either way.
That Obama video has been everywhere I've gone this morning (without, y'know, leaving my chair). About a third of the way through I did start to get an itching for concrete environmental policy, but then there was this woman Signing...
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a homeowner who had to paint his fence almost weekly with the jist of the article being that it is no big deal.
I noticed something walking the kids home from the pool the other day. Two houses right by a bus-stop. The house on the right had an eight-foot high cinderblock wall, painted white, covered in tags. Many of which had obviously been done with a vivid while waiting for the bus. The house on the left had a three-foot high wooden fence, painted brown. It hadn't been touched.
There's something in that which suggests there's something you can do short of stabbing people...
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I flogged the "Near Whizzy Air" example (Now is the Hour) from an ancient book called New Zild & how she is spoke.
I have that. And the companion volume, Let Stalk Strine.
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It's a common misconception that shearing isn't a very well-paid gig; quite the opposite, it's big money.
It's good money until you're in your mid-thirties, at which point your shoulder, back and legs are probably buggered. It's a young man's game and unless you go into contracting, one without much of a career path. There's big money in contracting, but you're obviously getting more out of it than the people who work for you, the actual shearers. I'm often boggled by how the media seems to miss that there's a hierarchy in rural work just as there is in urban work, and asking Fiona Elworthy how 'the rural sector' feels about something is about as useful as asking a managing director how his Otara factory workers are getting on.
Disclaimer: my brother is a shearer, and has quite a different accent from my mother and myself. And would have said 'different to' just then.
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I've found it really interesting noticing how spelling and grammar errors are affected by accent. Not all of them, but before I started working with Americans, I hadn't realised that the reason my friends from Oklahoma mix up 'accept' and 'except' is that they sound exactly the same to them.
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I suspect age, class and region all play a part. I was beaten at school for being able to distinguish my vowel sounds, so I do it, but it wasn't normal for that time and place.
When I was pregnant with my second child, it was suggested that if the baby was a girl, I should call her Sharon. Because I already had a son called Kieran, and then they would be Kieran and Sharon, see? Caring and sharing. I still run across a lot of people who, despite my cut-glass vowels, think I'm saying 'Karen' when I pronounce his name. Oh, the hilarity.
Fortunately, being from Timaru, I was perfectly aware of the dangers of calling your child Sharon.
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I didn't mean 'full years', because that would stick you with exactly the same situation. I don't think how many months you spend in year one ends up making much difference thirteen years down the line. But I should say, I'm not in favour of ANY inflexible line in the sand, years or age or achievement. I just thought that if you wanted a hard line, setting an age which a substantial number of kids are under after they've legitimately finished school is... well, silly.
And yes, I had a good friend who skipped fourth form and was actually sixteen when she finished hgh school.
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I'd've thought people with level 2 NCEA and/or scholarship would generally be about 18.
Nah, there'll be pots of seventeen and a bit year olds legally required to run off and do two to four months or so of 'training' after completing high school. My daughter will be one of them, as will pretty much anyone else with a birthday April or earlier. This is why I would have thought 'years of schooling/training completed' would have been better than a flat age.