Untiring

The Word of the Day for October 13 is "untiring."

untiring: (adjective) Characterized by hard work and perseverance.

Synonyms: hardworking, industrious, tireless, indefatigable.

Usage: He was an untiring fighter for justice, democracy, and tolerance.

Relevance to My Life: The kids' untiring pursuit of a sugary snack led them to drag a dining room chair into the kitchen, climb up on the counter and explore the deep recesses of one of the kitchen cupboards where they were rewarded with a crumbling bag of forgotten Hallowe'en candy.

M&Ms Get in the Bowl

This one cracks my kids up, even though they're not the biggest fans of M&Ms.











Snickers Feast Movie

This one cracks me up! I love the Viking. Plus, who doesn't love a Snickers?









Monty Python - Spam

Did someone say Vikings?










Monty Python- Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook

This is one of my all-time favorite sketches.









Monty Python - The Lumberjack Song... auf Deutsch!

Und mit Lederhosen. Brilliant.

Stilted

The Word of the Day for April 10 is "stilted."

stilted (adjective) Stiffly or artificially formal; stiff

Synonyms: artificial, contrived, hokey

Usage: She knew no other way to express her genuine feelings than the stilted language of The Family Herald.

Relevance to my life: When I attended the welcoming reception for the Soros Foundation's Teaching Fellows in Tallinn, I remember how stilted the Estonian teachers' speech was. At first I attributed it to degrees of language fluency, but after mingling and talking to them I realized that this program was one of the first to recognize Estonia's statehood on the international scene. Intense emotion and national pride, not language inadequacy or cultural differences, choked their throats and affected their speech.

The Estonian National Anthem
I learned this song fairly early on, since people played it often. I was there from 1993-1994, shortly after their independence from Moscow. While Estonians have always maintained a strong ethnic identity quite separate from Russians, you could say that just after full independence, it was fiery and fervent.







The Finnish National Anthem
Interestingly, it is exactly the same melody. Finns and Estonians and culturally, linguistically and ethnically very closely related to one another.








Onnenpyörä
I got to watch a good deal of Finnish television when I was in Estonia. My favorite show was Wheel of Fortune in Finnish.







Conan O'Brien in Finland
Conan had some segments a few years ago where talked about his similarity to the Finnish President Tarja Halonen. He later visited Finland and visited a few television shows. Hilarity ensued.









Finland
My sentiments exactly, and I'm not being facetious. I loved visiting Finland and would like to go back again some day. It's a beautiful country and I love the sound of the language.

Fortnight

The Word of the Day for April 9 is "fortnight."

fortnight: (noun) A period of fourteen consecutive days.

Synonyms: two weeks

Usage: Most major tennis tournaments last a fortnight.

Relevance to my life: Although I was taking enough medication to knock out an elephant, I can still remember the fortnight immediately after my son's death with crystal clarity. My recall of the intervening years is spotty, but nearly every hour of those 14 days is burned onto my memory.

This one was hard, not because it's a difficult word, but because it is such a completely British word. Perhaps it's common in Australia, New Zealand and Canada as well, but it is not at all the norm in the US. It's hard not to feel pretentiously Anglophilic using it, and I'm something of an Anglophile.

In honour of our sister tongue, here are a bunch of thoroughly British clips.




Do you speak English?
Damned foreigners!








Four Yorkshiremen
This could easily be Four (Crotchety Old) Yankees.








Eddy Izzard on the differences between British and American English
One question: is he wearing pajamas?








Britain's Got Baton Twirling
The Billy Elliotness of this clip always makes me tear up.