Weird things are happening to me, what does it mean?

[path_of_one]

LOL- we're talking about you, but only saying good things!

Trust me, after the last two months of near-constant rain and 30-40 degree weather, I would LOVE to come spend a little time down under with you in the Australian summer!

Oh, and we all have accents to other people. LOL I'll never forget taking a cruise when I was 17 and finding out I had a "California" accent. Most American accents, no matter what the region, seem to be more... harsh? sound to me. Gutteral, maybe? Can't quite figure out the descriptive term I want. All I know is most of the English and Aussie accents I hear sound nice to my ears.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by greymare

are you guys talking about me.???? And FYI we dont have an accent YOU LOT DO! lol. Yeah, Q, Im prim and proper. ha. Fair Dinkum (no pom says that). We have our own language. OZ. LOL. I never give it a thought that we would be closer (colloquially) to those poms, but I didnt think we are closer to you yanks either. LOL. Its all good. We all know that you guys wanna come here for holidays and to live, so I cant blame you being just a little bit jealous of our wonderful country. (Im reading too much into it, arent I ). LOL.
Oh, Path, Ive got enought dirt of my own, baby. LOL

I'm from Michigan, wait until you hear my voice...lol

[greymare]

That was a good cover, path, Ill give you that. LOL. Yeah, its funny, that we have accents to other peoples ears. I can usually pikc a canadian from a american. but thats it. I like South African accents. (I practice saying "Im a taxi driver from south Africa" It actually sounds like "Ima tixi drrriva frum Sith Ifrica") well, thats what it sounds liketo me. Say it out loud. It works. lol. I love the accent that jimmy stewart had , whatever that was.

[greymare]

why, whats the difference between a michigan accent and californian.?

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by greymare

why, whats the difference between a michigan accent and californian.?

LOL, oh boy, where do we start Q?

One of the most obvious is that California has certain grammatically incorrect structures. We say "like" and "all" a lot. They are universal stand ins for a verb such as "said," as in...

I'm like, "CR is such a great place to talk about religion."

or

I'm all, "Greymare's Australian."

They are also fillers in sentences...

I was like standing in line at the grocery store, and this guy in front of me was like totally wearing too much cologne. And I'm all, "Dude, some of us are allergic to that stuff!"

Stereotypical, but the use of "like" and "all" in this way seem to permeate anyone's speech who grows up there. Even if they are like totally college-educated. LOL

Mmm... the hard thing to explain via typing is the inflection of Californians, which is somewhat unique. It's like we tend to speed up certain parts of sentences and slow down others, and emphasize certain parts of speech.

I'll leave Q to explain Michigan... I'll just say that, like southern accents, it's pretty distinctive and sounds quite different from West coast pronunciation.

[greymare]

ah right like, Iget ya< like the emphasis on the wrong sylable> lol

[Saltmeister]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

One of the most obvious is that California has certain grammatically incorrect structures. We say "like" and "all" a lot. They are universal stand ins for a verb such as "said," as in...

I'm like, "CR is such a great place to talk about religion."
I'm all, "Greymare's Australian."

They are also fillers in sentences...

I was like standing in line at the grocery store, and this guy in front of me was like totally wearing too much cologne. And I'm all, "Dude, some of us are allergic to that stuff!"

Mmm... the hard thing to explain via typing is the inflection of Californians, which is somewhat unique. It's like we tend to speed up certain parts of sentences and slow down others, and emphasize certain parts of speech.

Oh are you serious PathOfOne? Do they write like this as well? We get that here as well. So it came all the way here from California. Someone must be watching too many American comedies or somehow we're being infiltrated by invisible Californians.

It's a disease. Sorry grey.

But I'm all serious. It's like, they're all, this is our country. Now it's like I'm all scared and Californian. It's like it's a kind of cultural Californication. I'm all in bed sleeping with the Americanisms.

[Saltmeister]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

LOL I'll never forget taking a cruise when I was 17 and finding out I had a "California" accent. Most American accents, no matter what the region, seem to be more... harsh? sound to me. Gutteral, maybe? Can't quite figure out the descriptive term I want. All I know is most of the English and Aussie accents I hear sound nice to my ears.

Hey Path, with regards to your description, is it like, really an accent? Isn't it more like all mannerisms? .....and it's like I'd think that all over time that the Californian speak would be like all spread over the country?.....so that Americans all over the country would be all like, not able to like, recognise the mannerisms, because they are like all doing it? Am I all like getting this, like wrong? Does it like, sound all funny because like, I don't come from California or even the U.S.?

I can imagine like, myself going there because like, I'm all good at talking and can like talk like they do. I'm all thinking this is like, all very funny.

Hey you Californians. We can like, all copy your so-called "accent."

[path_of_one]

I'm totally, like, rolling on the floor laughing.

In all seriousness, I don't write that way, but unfortunately I have had freshmen in my college classes that did. They had some catching up to do with proper grammar. Netspeak is also infiltrating people's writing habits, which is a disturbing trend. We don't want our scientific journals to end up with horrible grammar.

As for the accent, I must sound as if I have an accent to other people, since they could place it as West coast, and specifically Californian. However, it's generally difficult to explain what one's own accent is. My speech sounds like standard English to me, and I had to unlearn pronouncing many things "correctly," for some competitive speech monologues I did in high school in order to have a British accent.

The really distinctive U.S. accents (to me) are New York, the Wisconsin-Michigan area (which seems to have some influence from Dutch? maybe or Norwegian?), and the South. Maine sounds a bit distinctive too, now that I think about it. I have a lot of relatives in the Midwest and they seem to sound pretty much like all the people I know in the Southwest and West coast, except that Californians have these speech patterns that are odd. But even those seem to be more localized, really, because some of the really rural inland areas of California sound just like the rest of the Southwest.

Maybe it is a surfer culture thing, and that is why you get it in Australia? (Or maybe its just CA's big world export of Baywatch? LOL)

I can now say, though, I am not a Californian any longer. LOL I am a Washingtonian. Well, half the people I meet here are from California, and more than half the people I met in California were from elsewhere... so I don't know that any of it really amounts to much. Big country, lots of regional differences, and everyone seems to move around a lot.

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

Yeah, it took me a minute to get it too. LOL Must be a British vs. American terminology thing.

Well, seeing it is our language.... I guess we win.

California accent? Is that happy yanky accent that makes you want to grab the person by the throat and crush your finger tips right through until they are tightly clenched in your palm as fists? So no longer are you strangling the person to death, you simply have to handfuls of flesh?

Oh wow super!! YAY it's like.... soooooo awesome to seeeeeeeeee you!! eeee hehe ehehehehehe yay!!! I am just like so super psyched toooo dayy..... *Arrrgh arrgh I can't like, breath,, like arrghghh I'm not so super.... ararghghghethghe NOOO PLEASSS ARGGGH NOOOOOOOO*

Oh that is therapy lol.....

[Saltmeister]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

In all seriousness, I don't write that way, but unfortunately I have had freshmen in my college classes that did.

Freshman? Is that Year 9? Woa I almost thought there were names for every year level. Just as well there's only four. Freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. I like numbers better. Apparently "high school" for you begins at Year 9. For us it's preschool/kindergarten, primary school (Prep and Grades 1-6) and secondary school (Years 7-12).

Educational stages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I just read that in some places they call Prep "Reception." It got me thinking of a desk with a computer on it and a guy/girl typing away and answering phone calls. It's the year when the phone rings.

[path_of_one]

LOL- you got it 17th! You figured out how to type it... slower on some words, faster on others. LOL There are degrees of "valley speak" though; seems to infiltrate everyone down there a little bit, but the more extreme versions is enough to drive anyone up the wall.

And Salty, I meant freshman in college. (Grade 13, I would guess?). Our school systems vary a lot across the country, but they go something like:

Preschool/Pre-K
Kindergarten
Elementary (Primary) School 1-6
Middle (Secondary) School 7-8 (or 7-9, depends on the district)
High (Secondary) School 9-12 or 10-12 (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior)
College/University (all over again: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior)
Graduate/Professional School



And of course, 17th, you guys had the language first... so I suppose it is all of US that have the really odd accents! LOL

[greymare]

the lingo i have trouble with is the scots. sorry tao. it took me several timesto watcha billy connollly video to understan what he was talking abooot. lol. but i do lovehim.

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

LOL- you got it 17th! You figured out how to type it... slower on some words, faster on others. LOL There are degrees of "valley speak" though; seems to infiltrate everyone down there a little bit, but the more extreme versions is enough to drive anyone up the wall.

That is the main "image" that makes me not want to go to America lol... I couldn't be held responsible for my actions meeting people like that....... lol.

Originally Posted by path_of_one

And of course, 17th, you guys had the language first... so I suppose it is all of US that have the really odd accents! LOL

But, of course!

[Dondi]

Francis, I like much of what you've said, particularly about being open-minded to new ideas.

I would like to comment on some things, however.

Originally Posted by Francis king

as for evidence of biblical accuracy... there is none... the bible itself, and also the fundamental beliefs about what it is to be a christian and what a christian should believe have changed significantly several times over the course of christian history, and that is the only fact we can actually be sure of. There is no proof of Jesus, apart from this book, the bible, and if you have ever heard of things like the "gnostic gospels" you will see that the bible has been compiled and altered a good few times, by different ppl with different agendas... only the most rabid fundamentalists would believe otherwise... why do you think there is so much diversity within christianity? because ppl change things to suit themselves...

Without getting into the question of inerrancy, accuracy, changes in the texts, or for that matter, the Gnostics and other externals, I am more inclined to believe that much of the diversity in Christianity is the result of interpretations of the extant scripture, rather than these other variables. I do not see too many denominations that venture outside the Old and New Testaments, rather on the whole the development of a denomination depends on what portions of scripture are emphasized (for example, Pentacostals look toward gifts of the Spirit, Orthodox churchs focus on the ritual of the Cross, Methodists concentrate on the teachings of Christ, Evangelicals on salvation). These several examples demonstrate that there can be an imbalance toward extremes, but only because different scriptures are central to their tenents.

Originally Posted by Francis king

A lot of ppl with bi-polar disorder and psychotic disorders can be intensely spiritual while they are in crisis, and I also think I came across two other important symptoms which usually occur in such instances, and they are... you guessed it, sleep paralysis and what is known as "temporal lobe epilepsy". This TLE is described as a sensation within the body, like being flooded with light, or God, and scientists reckon it is often the result of what they call a "serotonin cascade"- a feel good chemical in your brain pumps out a lot of stuff and bingo, u feel all blissed out and tingly, and a lot of ppl attribute this, not to a disorder, but to God...

I wonder why there has to be a distinction between the spiritual and the physical when it comes to a relationship or experience of God. I figure that God created our brains and bodies to function in a certain manner so that when we are drawing near to Him, the chemical reactions in our bodies will follow to created those feelings of bliss.

Now I recognize that there are disorders that effect this, we live in a fallen and diseased world. And for those suffering as such will experience this differently depending on the disorder.

But for a normal person, the principle is that if one follows the precepts of morality and love, yada,yada, yada, as designed by God that we should follow, then we are going to experience feelings of joy, peace, and contentment, albeit "serotonin cascade", because we are doing right. We are operating according to the way God designed us. Their needn't be this distinction between the physical and the spiritual.

Originally Posted by Francis king

Like drunks, nutters can be good and bad. If you are crazy, like me, then it is better to be religious and crazy than be crazy and irreligious. And the main reason for that is... religion is generally a place where morals and ethics and decency are important, and within religion there is guidance on how to live. If you are in a crisis, then it is good to have a safety net, in God, or in a firm belief system.

You will not decend into psychosis and run into the supermarket with a gun and shoot ppl, you will not become manic and gamble your money away or get involved in risky sex, becuase no matter how bad it gets your belief in God will stop you doing it. Yes, you might still become psychotic, but if you sit at home in the quiet and read the bible for a bit, have something to eat and then sleep... things always look brighter then...

Of course, whether you would do these things anyway, with or without religion, depends on who you are... but if the limits of your madness so far involve reading a few religious books when you're feeling a little high, there's no need to worry too much about yourself just yet.

Not sure I agree with this assessment at all. Some of the worst nutters have been caught up in religious fanaticism or motivated by religious means. Look at David Koresh, Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate, extreme terrorists, just to name a few. Religiousity does not immune you from phychosis.