Sorry mate! I should've remembered to still italics lock on.

A few more:

Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
Is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?

Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.
It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

and this one cropped up earlier, on another thread I think:

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I like the second one... Must put that on my website.



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

Um, Ptols, how many 15 year olds do you know that work in Customs and Excise?



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

Loads. They have a great hit rate at catching drug smugglers cos they're never suspected.... Oh I dunno, I'm sorry Intrigue, I have no idea what I'm on about, so why on earth should you be expected to?! Apologies if I offended you. I simply wanted to get the point across that French is still the international language of the Customs people.

Back to the original topic (don't worry. It won't last), if I had my time again and didn't leave school after grade ten (BAD move!) I'd do Japanese. In the Antipodes (a word I never used til PSD got me started on it) Japanese is pretty important for the tourist dollar. So I'd go for that, ILS. Latin would be good as a base for the other Romantic languages, as a few others have said, and Business sutdies is a bore.

Glad to be of assisstance!

I gave up French at High School and continued with Spanish, because Spanish is so much easier to read and write. I'd recommend Japanese, if you think you can manage it, for someone living in NZ/Aus. It's a good business language over there.

I don't think my cousin knew much Japanese until he married a Japanese girl.



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

Eeee! You guys have got such good ideas (love the latin translations, Ptols) ! I've decided to do French (because I'm quite good at it (a surprise, i know) ) and Latin, 'cause I'm planning to learn German and Spanish later on, and ALSO because we get to learn a bit of history during it too, and I want to do Classics later (and art history, maybe).

Thanks once again :D
-ILS

P.S Can you do double brackets (like this (like this))?



"What I need is a strong drink and a peer-group." -Ford Prefect

Best avoided, ILS (although it's sometimes acceptable to use square brackets [like these])

You chose the same as me.

Don't forget these ones - {}



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

Thanks for the help with the brackets!

ILS

P.S Intrigue, I'm doing the exact same subjects (inc. Art & Drama) as one of my best friends (a win/ win situation)!



"What I need is a strong drink and a peer-group." -Ford Prefect

Aaagh! No!

<MvASSIGN NAME = "UpperString" VALUE = "{ toupper(&[string]) }" >

is the sort of syntax I have to use all the time. And on hi-res you often can't tell if you've mistyped } for ) as they get so small, never mind [ or <.

Have fun with brackets. Anyone had a worse experience?

For fun with brackets, program in LISP - aaaaargh!

Latin is lots of fun, as is Greek, and if you're doing art history later will come in handy as you will feel at home doing classical art. Did a year of Classical Art at Uni, it was the best fun I had studying. It was nice to get away from all the computing stuff.

Was the LISP any good apart from the brackets, and is anyone still using it? What for?

The on;ly fun I've had with brackets is when a wobbly shelf fixed using them fell on my sister's head.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I made a lovely pair of wrought-iron shelf brackets at High School that Dad put up in my bedroom. My parents have moved house twice since I went to uni so I have no idea what happened to them. Boo.

Your sister was okay, wasn't she?

Perhaps Kaz can change the story and say they fell on you, PSD.



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

I'm sure I can!

Dave Rainbow _
Re it being 'American' that's taught as 'English' in Asia etc nowadays: I suspect that the British version is still the one that's more commonly taught in India, and probably in many (if not most) other former parts of the Empire too...

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"God rot Botchkamos Istochnik!"

I agree with Simon about British English being taught in Asia. Regarding India's history there would be no reason for them having switched to the American version.
Btw. in German schools students generally learn British English first, and later learn about the differences to American English. At uni we have to choose whether we want to do British or American English, that means, when mixing up British with American spelling or comma rules or whatever, it will be marked wrong, depending on what the language of our choice is. At least this is the case at my uni.



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)