At 2004-02-10 14:59, Uwe Zimmermann wrote: >Hello Jaap, >Tuesday, February 10, 2004, 2:29:24 PM, you wrote: > >JvG> At 2004-02-08 22:19, Uwe Zimmermann wrote: >>>Hello Jaap, >>> >>>I admitted that I didn't read carefully enough - I thought this was >>>clear in my second message and I certainly didn't intend to be the >>>"wiseguy" here! > >JvG> Sorry, I read 'You should' instead of 'I should'. Probably >JvG> because of the second 'you' in the sentence. > >JvG> Greetings, >JvG> Jaap > >As a native German I might be used to write too long sentences. I >often hear this criticism ;-}
But in the Netherlands we also tend to write too long sentences in English... ;-) I think it's not our fault but that of the Englisch speakers: Their sentence structure is very rigid and doesn't lend itself much for the content rich long sentences that we are used too. And the fact that nouns are kept separate like 'english speaker' instead of 'englishspeaker' doesn't help either to write understandable elonged sentences. But the main problem is the way that the use of short sentences has affected their brains over time: They just can't stay concentrated long enough during long sentences anymore to understand the subtle nuances of what we try to express. Don't forget that most of them grow up with American-like television, which has a different subject or distraction every 2 or 3 minutes (or the brain of the average viewer would overload and explode). I never got used to CNN except during crises when they leave out the distractions. I love to watch Larry King when he has an interesting guest like for example Bill Maher, but all those (often self-) promotional clips every 7 minutes or so make me want to run away and do things that I can't express on a list like this! Here in the Netherlands we tend to make documentaries of 15 to 30 minutes without breaks and in Germany a documentary isn't thorough enough when it's not at least 45 minutes. Movies are broadcast here on the public channels without any break, so you need to go to the lavatory beforehand and then you have to sit tight for at least 90 minutes before you can go again. They recently rebroadcasted 'Les Unes et Les Autres' which lasts 3.5 hours and already half-way I thought my bladder and kidneys would break... I hope they won't rebroadcast War and Piece or Doctor Zhivago again soon... By the way, given the many interruptions in American shows and movies, it's not strange that the USA citizens tend to grow very fat: Every 7 minutes or so a broadcast is supended for commercial messages and they go wandering through the house in search of easy-to-prepare food, so usually snacks. >Friends again? We were never non-friends as far as I am concerned... But I may have made a lot of new non-friends over the big pond by what I wrote above... ;-) Greetings, Jaap -- Author: Jaap van Ganswijk INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Hosting, San Diego, California -- http://www.fatcity.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
