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Active Learning

Disclaimer #1: I am going a bit off the cuff with this post. Reader discretion is advised.

Disclaimer #2: This one too is dedicated to Dr Stephen T Colbert and that brings us to tonight’s WORD: ACTIVE LEARNING.

Now folks, every time I am home, I see this commercial on TV - this (kinda hot?) Mom bragging about how a certain DTH operator helped her learn English. Most of you would have seen it. And well, the first time I saw it, when she makes that transition and says pro-"noun"-cia-tion initially, I said to myself, Its pro-"nun"-cia-tion for god’s sake. Thankfully the ad makers took care of that.

So, why am I discussing pronunciations here? Well the simple fact is that most of the people get that pronunciation wrong. This is ok, considering it’s not our first language. People also get "restaurant" wrong. Hell, even I don’t know how to pro-NOUN-ce "restaurant". You see, French may be damn seductive, but it’s not the most phonetic of languages. (Don’t even get me started on "Au Revoir" and "Paris"). But the point is, people mess up words.

Now folks there’s another word out there, and a considerable percentage of people get it right. The number in itself may not be very high, but considering that the word is complex, probably French origin again (yes wiki-ed it, its French), and yet most people (around me) get it right. And the word is (wait for it) - Lingerie.

Now think about it. How did we learn that? Certainly it was never taught at school. No smartass went around looking up syllables in a dictionary. So how the hell did we learn that it’s "Lingerie" and not, well not-lingerie. So somehow, we have managed to pick up more than what has ever been taught in the classroom. And that, folks, is called ACTIVE LEARNING. And that’s tonight’s word.

We’ll be right back.

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Comments

  1. UnknownJune 06, 2010 2:27 AM

    gud one... :D
    but not half as much fun without the side comments as on the 'the repor(t)'

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 06, 2010 2:55 AM

    but if u do imagine colbert reading out dis one, it automatically sounds much more funny (thr was a scope of a side jok wid the french tho)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sri Harsha DandibhotlaJune 06, 2010 8:49 AM

    first things first.. its "Nation" not "folks".. how the hell did you mess that up

    ReplyDelete
  4. _manGO_June 07, 2010 2:45 AM

    @KG ... prolly i shud start mmaking videos .. video blogs

    @harsha: sorry ... corrected neway .. waise prolly fudged up cos havent seen one in like 3 weeks

    ReplyDelete
  5. _manGO_June 21, 2010 10:06 AM

    @harsha: why did i ever listen you
    i was right from the beginning
    he does say folks
    prolly shud've stuck to the axiom: rao da is always right :)

    ReplyDelete

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