How does one become a writer?

By Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, Philippine Free Press

April 16, 2011—Trying to answer a graduate student’s question as to how I became a writer, I chose the quick easy answer: I was an avid reader. She then pulled out notebook and ball pen and asked me to give her a short list of where she should start.

“Start?” I repeated. “But aren’t you already a reader?” She shrugged. “Now and then. This and that. Not really.” She obviously saw no vital connection between writing and reading.

We talked about how she spends her free time. She’s online a great deal: surfing, blogging, Facebook-ing. When she’s not online she’s watching movies on her laptop. Or listening to music on her Ipod. Or downloading music. She meets up with friends and goes malling, or gimmicking. Sometimes she checks out art exhibits held in small galleries or cafes all over the city. She has participated in two international comic book conferences.  I have no doubt that if these options had been available in my youth, that’s how I would have been spending my spare time too. Would I have become a writer? I truly don’t know the answer to that one.

“About the list, ma’am,” my student reminded me.

Should I start at the beginning? This would mean the picture books of my childhood—crisp, fragrant, lavishly illustrated—Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, Robinson Crusoe. Well, maybe not that far back. Maybe I could start with the books that I treasured because they looked like “grown up books” to me, that is, they looked like the novels in my parents’ bookcases.

I still have some of them…

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Back in Baguio for the annual UP National Writers Workshop
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star  

April 18, 2011—It’s always a pleasure to be back up in Baguio for our annual UP National Writers Workshop, and that’s where we are and what we’re up to again as I peck away at this piece on my laptop. We’ve traditionally gone up on Easter Sunday, but with Holy Week falling late in April this year, we decided to move up the workshop a couple of weeks earlier…

The workshop itself got off to a rousing start with a discussion of  among others  two pieces by two young women writers in English, both of whom happened to be students of mine in UP many years ago. I should add here that we’ve reoriented the UP workshop for some time now to focus on what we call mid-career writers who’ve already published at least one book, given that many other workshops now address the needs of absolute beginners. It’s in mid-career that the writer  long out of the university and working by his or her lonesome  needs reaffirmation, some form of assurance that one’s travails have been and will be worth it, despite the absence or the shortage of recognition and remuneration for one’s creative labors.

The first writer whose work we took up was Jennifer Ortuoste, a mother of two who came with a very interesting background in journalism (she’s now doing a PhD in Journalism in UP) and horseracing. Yes, horseracing  she used to ride horses as an apprentice jockey and was married to a professional jockey, and has had a long and distinguished career as a horseracing announcer, columnist, and historian…

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Old journalism rules still apply even in the age of Facebook and Twitter

MANILA, April 21, 2011—This year’s graduates may have cut their teeth on new media where stories are sourced and shared in new ways but the old fundamentals of journalism—accuracy, balance, ethics, attribution—hold true as ever.

Reuters Philippine Bureau Chief John Mair told students this at the Thomson Reuters forum “Journalism: Challenges and Opportunities," part of UP College of Mass Communication’s 46th foundation week talk-series. “Anyone can blog, tweet or post video but both the challenge and opportunity is sifting for what’s relevant and true from streaming information, putting that in context, and explaining its meaning.”

Mair cited how the recent anniversary-celebration of the peaceful EDSA people-power revolt of February 1986 presents a counterpoint on how covering media has changed—compared to say, real-time reports of violence as the Libya uprising unfolded. “Control of communications reaches people on the ground, courts sympathy everywhere else, and helps win revolutions. Radio Veritas did that for the Philippines then. Now, in the Middle East, smart phones enable anyone to feed video, photos and messages globally. People are being organized through Facebook and Twitter!”

Mair added however that the other camp can also use the same channels to reach their supporters or misinform, reporters can still get hurt in the crossfire, and copyright and libel laws apply to the internet too.

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Reclaiming patriotism: Surprises in the market
By Isabel Escoda, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, April 10, 2011—Why was it that I suddenly cried out “Hallelujah!” the other day in Dumaguete? Can I tell you why? Would you believe me when I explain the cause of my surprise—even joy? Was it simply because, while window-shopping at the Lee Plaza downtown, I found a nice blouse that bore a “Made in the Philippines” label?

Was it patriotism that made me exclaim and buy it forthwith, or was it foolishness because I really don’t need anymore new clothes at my advanced age?

Or did I purchase it simply because I liked the nice fabric, sober grey-and-black stripes and faux epaulettes—and because it was so cheap at a mere P350 pesos? Wasn’t it an absolute bargain when compared with prices in Hong Kong, where I live?

Didn’t my having resided for some time in that so-called Gateway to China, termed by the locals as “Asia’s World City ” (and by writer Han Suyin as “a pimple on China’s bottom”), make me think that returning occasionally to the land of my birth is almost like going back in time to a place both familiar and sad?

Why sad? Is it because our beloved bayan lags behind the other Southeast Asian countries in many ways? Haven’t I invented three categories for Asian nations—the SSD, AFD, TD?

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Our wonderful, wacky English language
By Irwin Kraus, The Sun Chronicle

April 21, 2011—English has become the common language of international commerce and discourse. That is so because it is wonderfully expressive and wonderfully compact in that expression. How did that come to be?

Several years ago I traveled frequently to Europe for work (poor me). One of the things I noticed in my travels was multilingual signs. On a store security sign photographed in the Netherlands, the same message in English takes 17 percent, 34 percent, and 46 percent more characters to represent in German, French, and Dutch respectively. The same is true when English is compared to Spanish and Italian. That is not uncommon, and it is not an accident.

While German and French and Dutch are relatively pure, English is promiscuous and highly mongrelized. English has freely borrowed words from many different languages (balcony, Italian balcone; absurdity, French absurdite; alligator, Spanish el lagarto). We borrow words enthusiastically and unabashedly. As a result, the English vocabulary contains about twice as many words as Spanish, for example. From this large vocabulary, we can most often express an idea in fewer words than any other language.

This is a mixed blessing. While English expression is more compact, Spanish is much more consistent and easier to learn. But for non-native adult speakers, English can be a nightmare to master.

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Fun with the English language
By Staff Reports, MountainTimes.com

April 14, 2011—Sometimes when I am driving long distances by myself, I like to play word games in my head to stave off the monotony.

One of my favorites is to take the three letters seen in most North Carolina license tags and try to think of English words where you would find those three letters in order (although not necessarily all three in a row).

For instance, if I saw the letters TFD on a license plate, examples of words that would work would be “stiffened,” “tufted” or “stuffed.” In this word game, Scrabble rules apply in that you cannot use foreign words or proper names.

Another word game I like to play is to try to think of contronyms that I have never thought of before. A contronym is a word that is its own antonym, meaning that through some odd evolution of its use, it can mean its own opposite.

For example, the word “bound” can mean both heading somewhere and also being prevented from going anywhere. Another contronym is the word “garnish.” It can mean something added, as a sprig of parsley on your plate, or something subtracted, as in money taken out of your paycheck.  

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What do Sarah Palin, the Vuvuzela, Snooki, and the English language have in common?
By Donna Cavanagh, The SOP.org 

Every once in a while a word becomes popular. Television, current events or our own stupidity breed word changes that become part of our modern culture. I have decided to talk about some of these words that are now enjoying their moment in the sun. It is my hope that by focusing on them, we can erase these words from our language or perhaps come up with new definitions that might help them make the world a more literate and compassionate place to be.

My first word on the list is dogmatic. While I am acquainted with the religious overtone of the word dogma --16 years of catholic school will do that to you -- I was not aware that the adjective dogmatic is a word used by pompous people when they want to criticize or condemn someone else`s opinions or belief system.

If I had my choice, I would not get rid of this word, but rather, I would change its meaning because I think dogmatic holds promise. From now on, dogmatic should mean an automatic action by a dog.  For example, when I open the refrigerator door, I know it is dogmatic that my pooches will come running. Or, chasing a squirrel in the yard is dogmatic.  

See, this new definition works great with  no more religious overtones. To be honest, I am surprised how a word like dogma got to have a religious connotation  I mean, it`s true that dog backwards is God, but I don`t think that was done on purpose -- or was it?  Wouldn`t it tick off a lot of people to learn that God is just a big German Shepherd running wild in heaven? 

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Language and culture go together
By Peggy Doherty, Times Herald

April 2, 2011—Language, not culture? Impossible!

One cannot "know" another language without "knowing" its culture. The two are inseparable. High school students who study French are learning French culture as well as the French language. Students who are learning English are also learning about culture in an English speaking world.

For many years, immigration to the United States came largely from Europe. European languages were "useful" because they were spoken by our parents and our grandparents and because we had close ties to at least one European country. Perhaps a better understanding of Tagalog would be useful for a child living in a home with grandparents whose primary language is Tagalog.

Times have changed. Today, especially on the West Coast, immigration is from Asia. More young people are exposed to Asian languages. For most immigrants, especially the young, learning English is a top priority. As a longtime teacher, now retired, of English as a second language to adult students, I never saw an adult student whose primary objective was anything other than to understand, speak and write English. Their commitment and ability to overcome huge obstacles in order to do so were awe-inspiring.

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What is your most awkward language moment?
By Leslie Berestein Rojas, MultiAmerican.scpr.org

April 5, 2011—It’s been well documented by now that growing up bilingual can be good for you. But getting there? Survivors of an English-learner upbringing can attest that it’s not always an easy road, and that the bumps along it – some amusing, some awkward – continue well into adulthood.

I began learning English in kindergarten, learning it at the same time my immigrant parents did. Because I was so young, I quickly mastered the American accent, as did my immigrant peers. But one of the pitfalls of growing up in a household where everyone is learning English is that along the way, you pick up many of the mispronunciations common to English learners.

These mispronunciations vary depending on who is learning the language. For Spanish and Tagalog speakers, for example, the double “ee” of “sheep” is often pronounced like the “i” in “ship,” and so forth. I got over the obvious mistakes fairly quickly.

There are other mistakes, however, that I’ve learned about as an adult, when I’ve said something to a friend, a co-worker (or worse, an editor) and am met with a perplexed look. These blunders are more baffling to people because, unlike others who learned English later in life, I have no discernible accent. But as native as my spoken English may sound, the ESL ghost haunts me.

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Posh, naff, twits of decent Blighty
By Martin Phillips, TheSun.co.uk

April 16, 2011—There are plenty of words that show we're from dear old Blighty as opposed to another English-speaking country.

Language expert Tony Thorne has listed the best in his new book, The 100 Words That Make The English.

Here are some of our favourites:

Ale: Modern form of the Old English "alu" from a prehistoric Indo-European word for "bitter".

Blighty: First World War slang for Britain, originally from the Hindi word "bilayati" meaning foreign.

Cad: 1940s Oxbridge slang for ungentlemanly scoundrel, from the 18th Century abbreviation of the French word "Cadet" for younger/lower-class person.

Chat: First used in 1530 for conversation like the chitter or chatter of birds.

Clever: Conveys mild appreciation of intelligence, perhaps from archaic Middle English "clivers" for claws, as in quick to grasp.

Cottage: Small, humble home, from pre-historic West European "kuta" for dwelling.

Cuppa: First used for tea by playwright PG Wodehouse.

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Whither English in Malaysia?
By Dr. Lim Chin Lam, TheStar.com.my

Pondering over some pointers on the English language and speculating on the future of the language in Malaysia.

April 22, 2011—This rambling article is a mixed bag of recent gleanings from a conference and the local papers, which provide food for thought.

The Penang English Language Learning & Teaching Association (PELLTA) organised the 5th Biennial International ELT Conference in Penang on April 13 to 15. The conference had an attractive theme, “Going Global: Teaching & Learning English in the 21st Century”. I attended it ... to learn-learn lah!

The conference was truly international, drawing some 120 speakers, presenters, and participants from Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Iran, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, China, Japan and Malaysia. There were four keynote addresses, 20 papers and 23 workshops spanning the spectrum of the teaching and learning of English, including teacher experiences.

What about local participants? About 50% of the total were from Malaysia. Apart from one keynote speaker (our Lucille Dass) and eight speakers and presenters, there were only 21 participants from Penang. On a Penang basis, the figures work out to roughly one speaker/presenter to an audience of two. Hey, where were the other English language teachers from Penang?

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English spoken is English enhanced
By Hentan, TheStar.com.my
 
April 17, 2011—Many students can read and write well in English but face problems when listening and speaking.

The main reason for this phenomenon is lack of practice and exposure to the language in their daily life.

Some English teachers communicate with their students in languages other than English during English lessons. This greatly reduces the opportunity for students to listen to or speak in English.

Furthermore, most of the students use their own language to converse while in school. When they go on outings or hang out with their friends, they will use their own language or dialect to communicate.

Students tend to watch movies and listen to the radio in a language other than English.

The majority of parents talk to their children in their own language, not English.

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National interests must stay paramount
Editorial, TheStar.com.my

April 10, 2011—When narrow concerns ride roughshod over national interests, society suffers. Thus the anxieties over last July’s decision to revert the teaching of science and mathematics in schools to Bahasa Malaysia or mother tongues from next year.

Defending the decision in deference to the vernacular languages is beside the point.

By helping students cultivate English language skills, Malaysia can only gain from familiarity with the world’s foremost international language.

For those whose English skills are weak, that may seem like a chore. But they would stand to gain more from organised efforts to develop English language skills. There can be no legitimate complaint against working a little harder when the rewards are plain enough.

The earlier policy of teaching science and mathematics in English had combined vision with realism.

Since mathematics deals mainly in symbols, the minimal English needed would be less demanding on students and teachers. With science, learning the universal English terminology acquaints students directly with those scientific terms without requiring them to learn two sets of terminology.

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Minding our language
By Hariati Azizan and Lee Yen Mun, TheStar.com.my

Aptil 10, 2011—Proficiency in English is vital in today's world and Malaysia needs to arrest the decline urgently if it wants to remain competitive.

It used to be easy for Malaysian students in Britain to get a part-time job or internship there.

An Engineering lecturer at a local public university who only wants to be known as Mar recalls how it was back then.

“Mention you are Malaysian and you will get one foot in the door. I remember one manager saying, Ah, we like Malaysians. They can speak English well, have no problem understanding instructions, not like other foreign students.'

“In fact, we spoke better English then than most Europeans. But, of course, that was in the 1980s.”

It was a different story when she went back to the UK to do her postgraduate studies in the late 1990s, she says.

“My thesis supervisor kept moaning about how the new batch of Malaysian students could not write or speak English well. He kept asking me what happened.”

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Fluency in English defines us in many ways
Dr. Megawati Omar, TheStar.com.my
 
April 11, 2011—It is heartwarming to hear that the Education Ministry is going to study having two languages for the teaching of Science and Maths.

This is a win-win move to champion both English and Bahasa Malaysia among Malay-sians.

Language defines a person in many ways. Hence being fluent in the world’s language, English, can define one in academic, science development, job market, international relations, science and travel.

In an academic setting, especially in universities, English is extremely important.

References are always in English, be it books or online sources. Activities in innovating, patenting, and publishing in international journals, the toasts of academic toil, are always conducted in English.

So do presenting at international conferences, applying for research grants, reporting research, and writing academically on the Internet. Writing assignments and publications in universities have to be in English for international recognition.

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The future will be spoken in all tongues
By John Sharp and Sandra Kloppper, Mail Guardian

April 21, 2011—We support the view, expressed by Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, that as many South African university students as possible should learn a local African language. But we do not agree with his ostensible justification for this position. He is reported to have said: "We can't be expected to learn English and Afrikaans while they don't learn our languages."

This argument highlights the purported significance of race, implying that the initiative is aimed principally at white students who should learn an African language to redress the injustices of the past. But how will repeating the injustices of the past be a way to overcome them? The 1976 uprising against the ­imposition of Afrikaans in black schools has, for more than three ­decades, made it utterly impossible for Afrikaans-speakers to expect -- let alone oblige -- any outsider to speak their language and has left them in a language laager of their own making.

Moreover, the reason black students are so keen to learn English has nothing to do with the demands or expectations of white South Africans. They want to learn English because it is the language of global communication and they know it will be for a long time, despite the ongoing shift in economic power from West to East.

We feel that race needs to be removed entirely from the argument for learning a local African language…

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Ready for English?
Editorial, The Japan Times

April 10, 2011—Fifth- and sixth-grade teachers will have one new worry starting this month — teaching English. All elementary schools must introduce compulsory foreign language lessons. Despite the difficulties of implementing this national strategy for English education, it is high time Japan took its English level more seriously. Only North Korea scores lower than Japan on the TOEFL exam in the Asian region.

The biggest hurdle may be the teachers' worries about teaching a new subject. Critics complain that few elementary teachers are specialists in English and that some have not even had training in the recommended curriculum. Yet, the same problem exists in other countries. Students from Taiwan, China, Turkey and Spain, among many other countries, have been learning English from younger ages for over a decade, and for more than the one hour per week now mandated in Japanese elementary schools.

By starting early, a better system for learning English can be gradually implemented over longer years of study. Age-appropriate activities can circumvent social feelings of embarrassment and the tendency toward perfectionism. Doing that in fifth and sixth grade will reduce Japan's notorious English phobia before the panic of entrance exams sets in.

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Century-old Book of Khalid sheds light on Arab unrest
By Jane O'Brien, BBC News

April 9, 2011—On the 100th anniversary of The Book of Khalid, the first English-language novel written by an Arab, the work seems remarkably relevant to the popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East today.

The Book of Khalid was written by Ameen Rihani, a respected Arab-American intellectual who was born in Lebanon in 1876.

It is the story of two Lebanese friends who migrate to New York.

The hero, Khalid, begins his new life peddling religious trinkets.

He adopts a bohemian lifestyle, but comes to reject America's consumerism and returns to Lebanon to find spiritual satisfaction.

The book offers important insight into the complexity of Arab-American relations.

"Rihani had this sense at the beginning of the 20th Century that both America and the Arab world were these great forces that would soon be unleashed and would determine future global politics," says Todd Fine, the director of Project Khalid, an effort to promote Rihani's work to a modern American audience.

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Flawed dictionary lacks credibility
By Mark Abley,  
 
April 2, 2011—Trying to encapsulate the English language in a single book is like trying to hold the wind in the palm of your hand. There's simply too much of it - too long a history, too wide a geography, too many new coinages clamouring for attention - for any one-volume dictionary to be more than an honourable failure. Still, the dictionary makers keep on trying, and none more devotedly than at Oxford University Press.

With some justice, the press prides itself on being the home of the English language. The great Oxford English Dictionary, whose origins go back to the 1850s, required 20 volumes for its most recent print edition; its successor, which is now being published in electronic instalments, may not be completed until sometime after 2030, and almost certainly will never appear in print. Oxford dictionaries have the advantage of bearing a registered trademark, whereas any dictionary can insert the name Webster's in the title; most American ones do just that. The result is that "Webster's" has become effectively meaningless.

For the past few months I've been using the most comprehensive onevolume dictionary on the market. Published under the somewhat confusing name Oxford Dictionary of English, it first appeared in 1998, with a revised and (of course) expanded third edition that came out in 2010. The confusion arises because despite the similarity of title, it's not based on the OED; it's a completely different animal.

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The Second Arrow: Phantom power of language
By Mini Krishnan, Hindu.com

April 3, 2011—The energy of India's multilinguality is its greatest intangible wealth: unrealised and untested. We know it takes many subtle shapes in terms of services, products and concepts but its most powerful form is knowledge transmitted through translation. The biggest intervention in the social energy of our languages was the visitor language English, and the pressure this single language applies today upon our language empire is enormous. At some cost to our languages, while simultaneously enriching us with outside influences, it has nudged us into a sense of needing to keep up with world literature — a trend which has led to a near gold-rush for translations of Indian literary works.

The cultural encoding this brings naturally calls for great skill when a decoding for another language readership is undertaken and therefore the translator's workshop, created in a phantom space between two languages is, in some sense, a linguistic outerspace where there do not appear to be any recognisable norms. Monolingual peoples have tried hard to arrive at many rules all of which break down when the translators function in a multilingual context. Worldwide, the practice is to translate into one's mother-tongue. Indians are unique in that they have reversed the norm and are, when they translate into English, jumping a wall facing away from it. Indeed the strategies and skills deployed by Indian translators as they move regional-language texts into a language whose DNA they lack, is a tremendous demonstration of their power to read, intuite and express.

There are many ways of re-writing, and representing the original, many ways of dealing with the unsaid, and naturally not all of them are successful…

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English and the job market are linked – inseparably
By Ajaz Hussain, GreaterKashmir.com

Thank God, we have overcome the dilemma. The doubt and uncertainty about the future of English language is over. We have come to realize the viability of this language on our soil and the trends of the present times are definitely in favour  of this language. The painful spectacle of English being treated with a chauvinistic intolerance at the hands of people, for whom it has opened up vistas of advanced learning in science and technology, commerce and industries, politics and judiciary, is no more witnessed. English  has and will play a vital role in establishing  our access  to scientific and non scientific  learning at the advanced  level  and will bring our younger  generations closer  to the level  where they will find  it easy to achieve  what they choose to. As a source language, it is the only language which is fully equipped with vernaculars and it renders adequately the entire corpus of technical terms and scientific jargon. This state of affairs necessitates a compulsive resort to this language for the people who come out of the institutions of Higher Learning to find jobs of their own liking.

Let me warn the critics of this language that English is here to stay. And as a medium of instruction, it will, I have no doubt, help the generations to achieve their goals fitfully...

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Of English language and identity
By Naila Neelofar, GreaterKashmir.com

March 26, 2011—In an age of satellite communication, and a gate-crashing invasion of  media in to our lives, the world has become borderless nevertheless opening new gateways of challenges before us. The world is just a click away. Technology has revolutionized economic and political structures adding new meanings to our lives. The world has changed and even the basic necessities of life such as water and air have been capitalized to make the  world  a  global place.  In the post colonial world. particularly, one has witnessed sweeping changes in cultures, traditions and languages and in the larger perspective perhaps identity. Identity politics, an aftermath of globalization, to a great extent  accelerated by English language has emerged as an important objective  to  rebuild  rooted tradition, religious sentiment and ethnic or national identities.  The process of globalisation cannot be undone but it is imperative to study its economic, political. sociological and cultural fall outs. The decline of vernacular languages in the corporate world has subverted identities  posing a big challenge to ethnicities and nationalities.

English language, the language of plowmen or peasants  reached its zenith by replacing the elite languages such as French and Latin, therefore, following the linguistic imperialism to its core. English is also called the killer’s language in the sense as it helps annihilate other languages and cultures by exclusive use of media. politics and economy…

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English assaults on language bastions
By VR Narayanaswami, LiveMint.com

March 21, 2011—B for Bombay! How often we have used this jingle, to help someone spell a word. That had to stop after the people of the city decided that its name should be restored to the pristine “Mumbai,” in place of its anglicized form. We should switch to M for Mumbai perhaps.

There is a close parallel to this from Russia. The government of Georgia wrote to Japan protesting against the latter’s use of the word Gurujiya as the name of the republic. This is the Russian name for the region, adapted in Japanese. Georgia’s foreign minister demanded that the name should be written Joujia, free from any Russian taint.

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia was thrown open to Western culture, and this led to the adoption of many foreign words. On the streets you could see “djeeps” and “djeans”; entrepreneurs called themselves “biznesmen” and discussed “menedgment”. In 2003, a new Bill was passed to protect the language. In this order, English words were put together with slang and swear words. Anyone caught using these was to face punishment at a correction centre.

Three months ago, China launched a campaign to contain the spread of English. On 22 December, the General Administration of Press and Publication imposed a ban on the use of English words by the media and publishing houses…

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Stale language or not please spare us the freshies
By Andrew Biggs, Bangkok Post
 
April 4, 2011—A few years ago, I caused a minor commotion on TV and in Pantip.com chatrooms when I made an announcement that shook the Thai student world to its very foundations. In a nutshell, I told everybody to stop referring to any first-year university student as a "freshy" because in the English-speaking world this word didn't exist. And if a single Thai could find me an international dictionary with the word listed, I would run naked down Silom Road in broad daylight.

The news would have been less shocking had I announced I was moving to Pattaya to have a sex-change and begin my new life as Andrea. This was 2004, pre-instant-messaging, but the reaction was still swift. Surely Andrew couldn't be serious—but  he was.

I was tired of hearing young Thais saying and writing: "I am a freshy at Thammasat University."

How wonderful you were accepted by that esteemed institution, nong, but please, if you're going to speak English, use the proper English word. The word is "freshman" (or "fresher" in the UK), not the Thai made-up "freshy".

I know, I know. I sound like a nit-picking party-pooper. It's the kind of topic that curmudgeons who infest PostBag in the Bangkok Post attack with relish. But I mean, on the grand scheme of things, who cares that Thais say "freshy" while the rest of the world says "freshman"?

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