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CSU in Two thousand and six |
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Written by FullMetal Alchemist - View Profile
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Tuesday, 02 January 2007 |
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I recently went to commencement exercises at CSU and the head of the school I was going to watch graduate (SOE or something) said "Welcome to commencement exercises for winter two thousand and six" I INSTANTLY cringed and could not pay attention to anything else he said.
Rewind about 15 years. A young Alchemist not yet FullMetal sits in English class watching a classmate get berated while the teacher explains to him how to properly write years, and even numbers. He stupidly argues that to say the year 1992 properly you say: "nineteen hundred and ninety two" The Teacher along with a majority of the class (and myself ) attempts to tell him that if you literally take what he just said, it would look like "1900.92" We get the math teacher to come in and without explaining the argument, ask her to write the numerical translation of "eighteen hundred and ninety six" (so that she didn't suspect, but also so we could get an honest answer) She proceeded to write "1800.96" she explained that "and" could be a representative of almost any symbol but is commonly a decimal depending on the context. I decided not to bite my tongue any longer and told the goon "Sit down idiot, that's stuff you should have learned in 7th grade math!" I promptly got detention for 2 days for my outburst, but it was worth it. (Because he was on the football team and thought he was tough shit. turns out he only smells like it.)
Fast forward back to present day CSU. Since seventh grade remedial math, I've never been able to accept anyone pronouncing years or numbers with an "and" in them. Think about it. When you're going to give a check to me for $980.34 how do you write it? "Nine-hundred and eighty and 34/100" NO YOU WOULDN'T! (Nine-hundred eighty and 34/100 by the way) This guy is the head of an entire department at CSU. He wore the robes of a scholar with the colors denoting his superiority over everyone else in the room. Are you telling me, he doesn't have access to English professors, or even Math professors to make sure he's pronouncing the year correctly? 2000.6 huh? That’s sheer genius.
I read somewhere that Alex Trebec (the host of Jeopardy) has a habit of pronouncing the years in answers: "eighteen hundred and ninety two" instead of "eighteen ninety two" or "eighteen hundred ninety two" So then stupid people would say; "how come Alex Trebec can get away with it?" the answer is HE DOESN'T I'm positive he gets told over and over again what it should be, but you know what? it's television anyway and most television execs probably don't know the difference. Besides, Alex only reads the questions, for all we know he could have the IQ of a dinosaur. you only need half a brain to read the damn categories and answers. It’s his voice and presence that make him who he is, not his brain. (no matter how uppity he reads the correct question when all 3 people get it wrong)
Dumbass has been fooling people for decades:
 a talking GPS could take over this guy's hosting duties | |
Written by felix on 2007-01-02 21:10:29 Thanks for the English lesson. I guess I never had thought about it so now I wonder how many times in my life I had committed this error too! But you are right... Not helping matters in my mind is practicing Spanish, where "and" is used commonly (e.g., 36 = treinta y seis, and 1997 = mil novecientos noventa y siete). Then again, numbers in Spain and several places in Latin America (I think) use commas for decimal points; e.g., 2095.34 = 2095,34 , so it gets even more confusing for me sometimes :) |
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FullMetal Alchemist (48) "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." |
|  | "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." | |
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