What was that?

Circular build, never the less, this is Australia Square, Sydney.

What will Putin do!?  Bide his time?

What we are hearing in the anthropocene. Sausage sizzle.
  Democracy Sausage.  Snag.
  Dog Whistle.  Donkey Vote.  Dorothy Dixer.
  Budget Black Hole.  Zombie Measures. Battler.
  Bogans. Smashed Avo. Psephologist.
  Two times - twice is rarely heard.

TAFE Hunter Street Campus Art School on a quiet weekend.

The hype that surrounds English language learning is well established and is embraced far and wide at any cost. Paradoxically, benign cities, such as Christchurch, NZ and Sendai in Japan have met with disaster and risk involving English Language Schools, students and teachers (many from the English speaking world) to say nothing of the wider untold disaster. 

光荣的中国兔年新年的新年
Year of the Rabbit..
...the sun rises in the eastern sky and hundreds of birds sing in harmony....

from Chinese Propaganda Posters. From the collection of Michael Wolf. publisher Tashcen. Gorgeous and sinister in equal measure - The Independent London

Hangul text tells a story with a cow theme.

Another ancient wall, Sangdangsansong, near the South Korean city of Ch'ongju.
Care with finer points of pronuncitation is in order, other cities in that area include: Ch'unju, Konju, Chonju and Kyongju. (symbols are carelessly omitted because of my shortcomings with word processing). National parks, historical sites and shrines are dotted all round these provinces.                                                                                                                    

Bio: Marriage for an ex-Newcastle young woman means two celebrations here and in the US.
This bride studied at Newcastle University and her ability with the Japanese language led to her employment in Japan and then in the USA where she met her husband to be. They have settled in Australia and look forward to a cross-cultural future. The photo with shade maintains some privacy.

Nobbys Beach.

Today: Sign in a clinic :

DOCTORS
DON'T FORGET!
INTERESTING PATIENT'S

What do they have in mind? Also, misuse of the Apostrophe is not unknown and comment about this is seen in the columns of the Sydney Morning Herald and strange examples make their way into collections.
I'd be the first to admit to my uncertainty about both punctuation and expression but while I am locked in this 'zone of proximal development' (Vygotsky) and in haphazardness, I notice more points now about the written word. I believe the apostrophe is omitted from place names, for example, Nobbys Beach.

There are nearly a quarter of a million Peace Poles in 180 countries. They serve as a constant reminder to work for peace.

more words.....
....Words of life, words of hope....
Ancient words ever true,
changing me and changing you;
We have come with open hearts,
O, let the ancient words impart.
Holy words long preserved for our walk in this world,
They resound with creator's own heart.
O, let the ancient words impart:
Ancient words ever true....

by Lynn Desha

Ella Kazoo is an outlandish lass with wonderful unruly hair and simply refuses to do anything with it. In this likeable story the words She and Her are repeated in the way that is found in children's books which have a clever agenda that stress certain words.
A little child who hasn't sorted out the words she and her would often say: Her is playing with her doll. Or so I've noticed.

A look at this story book shows how much we take for granted and how it is not easy to sort out all the words we use. The clues must be scarce for a child....eg

Ella Kazoo will not brush her locks
She stashes the brush in the draw with her socks
....She yells and she stomps and she gets in a tizz....
...her mother has called her a cunning wee fox....

However, a child doesn't need lessons and, I understand, they learn to speak automatically provided they are stimulated by hearing others speak. Chomsky has provided theories to explain the underlying magic. Reading and speech are not one and the same but these picture books must be good at enriching the learning experience.

One day when the child is old they may discover that she and he are subject pronouns while her and his are object or possessive prounouns or possessive determiners and some other points that can't be explained.

Ella Kazoo will not brush her hair. Lothian Books. Published by Hatchette Livre Australia P/L. 2006.

Another extract, in Arabic, about Sly the fox.
Extract reproduced to review the wide range of content.

more from yesterday in the Vietnamese language.
reproduced to review

Actor Penelope Cruz has been honoured.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is the film. I read these names are concatenated!
Also this is believed to be Spanish!

Black Swans are visiting Lake Macquarie these days.
All is not black and white for the Christian calendar has certain idiosyncracies and February 14th has links with Valentine as well as Cyril and Methodius.

Saints Cyril and Methodius were brothers who became missionaries of Christianity among the Slavic peoples a long time ago in the 9th century. Cyril was into the humanities and by and large is credited with devising an alphabet which became the basis for the Cyrillic alphabet used now in Russia and elsewhere. During his ventures he translated the sacred texts to use in the local churches.
The story of Cyril and Methodius involved both the Eastern and the Roman churches and as a result the saints are recognized far and wide.

Flower stall.


Mununja the butterfly as told by Don Bell with bilingual text and commentary by Chris Illert. ACT & District Aboriginal Council of Elders Association Inc. In the aborginal language of SE Australia. An extract reproduced for study purposes.

This work explains how it uses an alphabet of 18 characters comprised of 4 vowels and 14 consonants. In layman's terms it explains there's no e or o, nor consonants c f h j k p q s t v x z.

Horseshoe Beach, Newcastle Harbour, Nobbys in the distance.


From Mununja the butterfly as told by Aboriginal elder, Don Bell with bilingual text by Chris Illert. ACT and District Aboriginal Council of Elders Association. Inc.
The first story book in traditional Aboriginal language from South Eastern Australia.
Reproduced here to review.

We are fortunate to find the latest building at the Calvary Mater hospital to be as well as can be expected. The new traffic lights were switched on yesterday on this busy somewhat inconvenient road.
This building will probably house the emergency department. Adopting a very responsible tone I ask if the experts have allowed enough space inside for the ambulances to spend hours waiting in line? Is there enough headroom for an ambulance or will the whole thing be redesigned next year? Hope not.
I have to bring myself to write Calvary Mater when it was just Mater in the past. At this stage I really dislike the name Calvary Mater. While, I presume, loving care is intended, an image of dreadful suffering is not too far away.

The store, Miss Kansai, is into niche marketing with imports from Japan.

The Japanese language uses modified Chinese characters or Kanji and two syllabic scrips Hiragana and Katakana. Almost 2000 written characters are required from the school student.

A Korean ten.

The Korean language is not pictographic but has 40 written Hangul characters which are said to cover the phonetics very effectively and date from the 15th century when devised by King Sejong. Written Chinese characters were used prior to that time. Consonant and vowel are typically joined to form a syllable. The text is probably read from left to right.

The word order is of subject object verb with the verb put strictly at the end of a sentence.

Various means of expressing respect are important and many forms are used according to the age and social status of the speaker and of the addressee or when speaking about the elder.

Only 250 Korean family surnames are used but within which finer categories are identified. Brides do not necessarily adopt the groom's name and introductions or arranged marriages are probably the done thing when consideration is given to the role of the clan (or so I believe, disadvantaged by not understanding Korean, as it is fairly difficult to understand very much about a society at all unless one can speak the language).