Absolutely Anything Else

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.......Always wished to have a Lauren Bacall voice.
....

Ah well, now there's a subject. 

I always thought Lauren Bacall spoke with a voice roughed up by cigarettes and booze.  But even so, she somehow has conquered an ability to look both classy and tough at the same time.  Quite a a feat or just an interesting life!

There's a very popular woman presenter on British TV and radio called Fiona Bruce who has a very appealing if somewhat deeper voice.  Comes across as sultry, smart and well educated.

Amazing how it's all in the voice!

We have a HU  friend who lives in the US.
Knew him since I first met my husband, he lived in Hawaii too, and now is back on the mainland of the US.
In 1978 we took a train to S. Hungary to bring his parents some gifts for him. He is hard working construction worker and a nice guy.
Maybe 30 years ago he visited his parents in HU and met his current wife.
She is OK, very much a character.
Very strong over powering personality, our friend is a bit shy so she wears the pants in the family.
Anyway, her voice is so low and deep that everytime we called up and she answered we thought it was a man.
It is such a manly voice not one trace of anything fem in it at all.
She cuts her hair cropped short and is bossy as can be, I like her because she is one of a kind but seriously it is almost embarrassing to start talking on the phone and then realize it's a women not a man.
She is used to it by now, being mistaken for a guy all the time.
Her voice is deeper then just about any man I know.
Maybe her hormones are off?
There is nothing sultry or sexy about it, it's creepy.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.....
Very strong over powering personality, our friend is a bit shy so she wears the pants in the family.
Anyway, her voice is so low and deep that everytime we called up and she answered we thought it was a man.
It is such a manly voice not one trace of anything fem in it at all.
She cuts her hair cropped short and is bossy as can be, I like her because she is one of a kind but seriously it is almost embarrassing to start talking on the phone and then realize it's a women not a man...

I always thought Bea Arthur from the Golden Girls had a husky voice. 

It's really odd how just the voice gives one plenty of opinions about the person. And of course changes human behaviour depending on which gender the other one on the end of the phone is or appears to be.   

Your friend has just got longer vocal cords - could be a condition or just genetics.  My own voice gets very raspy if I'm forced to speak for long periods.   

This is a subject coming up more and more because of the use of voice recognition.  Some of those algorithms cannot cope with an F in the tick box on the form and a deeper voice or different intonation.  Been in the news a few times that they refuse service.

As far as we knew she is a "straight" women although one time they came to Vegas and brought a single women with them who was obviously not straight....Not our business... She had 2 kids before marrying our friend, he brought her and her 2 adult kids to the US.
Like I said, he is a nice guy.
We had to wear a uniform when I worked in the casinos' Black slacks or skirt, black shoes stockings etc.
They provided a variety of colored shirts for us to wear with the casino logo on them.
I often wore a classic pleated skirt with black stockings and knee high black boots or my black Hungarian made ortho ankle high boots with a heel.Always trying to make even wearing a uniform have a bit of class.
I am tall for a lady and slim.
Those casino shirts are always a bit on the loose side, to give room for movements on the tables, long sleeves and button up fronts to the collar.
One day I had on my black slacks they were on the tight side, special made pants for casino workers, stylish with no pockets on them.
I was walking to the dealers break room, the only place we can hang at on break as casino workers.
My hair was cut chin length but shorter in the back.
While walking on break some old dude in a wheelchair who probably was not able to see from that angle well just called out from the gaming machines loud.
Guess he was not experienced in waiting, he wanted a floor worker not a dealer to help him with his machine.
We dealers have nothing to do with gaming machines, no keys for them and not our job to help , once you push the button for help you must wait until they can come over and help you with whatever issue you have with a machine.
Ok, so my back side was to him and he screams out, "Sir, Sir  God dang it you Bas***!"
Not exactly sure who he was screaming at but my gut told me he wanted me to help him with the machine.
If he had not called me Sir, I would of walked over and told him the floor person would be coming and to make sure he pushed the button on the machine to get their attention.
Because he called out Sir, I just kept on walking and didn't even look back at him, I was peed off.
He was blind or the lighting was too low, how rude of him, He was lucky actually that I didn't walk over to him because I know I would of called him Mame or Miss.
I know he was just an old silly fool but still no one enjoys being mistaken for the wrong sex.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

......
While walking on break some old dude in a wheelchair who probably was not able to see from that angle well just called out from the gaming machines loud.
....
Ok, so my back side was to him and he screams out, "Sir, Sir  God dang it you Bas***!"
Not exactly sure who he was screaming at but my gut told me he wanted me to help him with the machine.
If he had not called me Sir, I would of walked over and told him the floor person would be coming and to make sure he pushed the button on the machine to get their attention.
Because he called out Sir, I just kept on walking and didn't even look back at him, I was peed off.
He was blind or the lighting was too low, how rude of him, He was lucky actually that I didn't walk over to him because I know I would of called him Mame or Miss.
I know he was just an old silly fool but still no one enjoys being mistaken for the wrong sex.

One of my daughters has a name which HU people do not know how to pronounce and they usually think she's a boy if they haven't seen her.  This is a problem I've encountered myself and I am also guilty of too.  I have e-mail contact with a lot of people with very foreign names which are not familiar and determining their gender is very difficult. 

I usually Google for their names to try and narrow it down but even then doesn't always work (as some names can be either - Jean or Kim etc).  It's usually a problem when addressing them - either Ms, Mrs, Mr.  What to use?  If it's Dr then it's easier, Dear Dr no problem gender wise or if it's someone with a title, so using Dear Deputy Director Smith works too.

In my line of work, we don't use gender specific titles - not Mr or Mrs or whatever.  We don't even put our academic qualifications on business cards. It seems to be a longstanding policy.

It's a tricky social issue. In Hungary, they always want to know how qualified you are regardless of competence but in other places no-one seems to ask.  I think really it's right, it shouldn't matter at all.

Well FB is sort of personal so you'd hope they would at least give you a clue about their gender if they want to FB you.
Just common sense to me if a person has a gender neutral name.
They must know their name could confuse people so they might want to throw you a bone or something.
Honestly I have forgotten my DIL's real name!!! How horrible of me!!She uses a nickname  instead which at least in English could be either male of female.
Gosh, I'm a bad MIL... My last DIL did such a number on us that sometimes it's hard to trust anyone again,
Well maybe not, she my DIL does prefer to use the nickname so that's cool with me.
I did get so mad at that guy for calling me Sir that I had to have my husband  tell me I didn't look like a man from behind! Now that's sad.
Maybe I'm a bit too sensitive.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Well FB is sort of personal so you'd hope they would at least give you a clue about their gender if they want to FB you.
Just common sense to me if a person has a gender neutral name.
They must know their name could confuse people so they might want to throw you a bone or something.
Honestly I have forgotten my DIL's real name!!! How horrible of me!!She uses a nickname  instead which at least in English could be either male of female.
Gosh, I'm a bad MIL... My last DIL did such a number on us that sometimes it's hard to trust anyone again,
Well maybe not, she my DIL does prefer to use the nickname so that's cool with me.
I did get so mad at that guy for calling me Sir that I had to have my husband  tell me I didn't look like a man from behind! Now that's sad.
Maybe I'm a bit too sensitive.

Oh I don't use FB so never bothered to look in it.  Stupid me then!  I don't really want traceability though. FB tracks all lookups and then hassles people to death trying to "hook" people up. But Google can work or I just use titles until I can suss it out.

Asian people have their Western names and their local names. I don't know how they decide on them.  Maybe in English lessons at school? 

In  UK French lessons they always gave us French names.  Mrs Fluffy has her confirmation name but it's all country specific and it's not on the birth certificate. 

In the UK, we usually have two first names. That seems to mess some systems up, particularly on air tickets.  In Africa, they tend to use the family name a lot which to me just sounds rude.  But they have odd (to me anyway) first names like Efficiency, Curious or even Hitler.  And in some countries everyone is called Mohammed or a variant like Rahman.

Air tickets are a problem - example made up name:  Peter Andrew Smith (this is not my name).  I've had to call airlines to find my reservation details because corporate travel agents have typed it in wrong or misunderstood.

I've seen problems where the ticket has been in the name Peterandrew (no space) or Smith Andrew Peter (reversed) and Peter Smith (no middle name) and so on.  It really messes with the system and causes all sorts of online check issues.    I tend to leave out my middle name now just to avoid confusion. 

Even then the first name last name order seems to screw with people's heads. In Central Asia, they always convert your name on a visa to Cyrillic phonetics which makes it undecipherable without a lot of practice reading. 

Now I'm going to through a cat in with the pigeons - Cyrillic alphabet is a serious block on communications and development.

Had a old boyfriend or rather he was a friend who happened to be born male.
His given first name was Lawrence but he went by Laurie.
He wouldn't allow anyone to call him Larry.
Yes he was a ballet dancer....Just saying , what are the odds.
Not every hairdresser is gay either, some just like to work with women.
Cyrillic letters.. confusing.
When we were driving in Poland at dusk looking for the way to the lake with no st. lights and many narrow country lanes to chose from and everything was in Cyrillic, it was crazy.
Lucky for us we drove back to Gorlice to a small shopping center, think it was a Lidel.
A very old man wearing a outfit from the past, like very 1940's looking with hat and actual stick with a napsack walked past us.
I was going to ask some younger people for directions but my husband went up to the old guy and started trying to communicate with him. It was very odd, they guy spoke no English or Hungarian but some German and Polish but he knew what we wanted.
He motioned that he would get in our car and show us the way.
I had my doubts but worth a try.
He took us right to the B&B , the rain was about to start and it was dark and cloudy when we arrived.
He pointed to the building and got out of our car. We called to him that we wanted to drive him where ever he needed to go.
He just smiled and waved.
We turned the car around to look for him and insist  on giving him a ride back or where he needed to go.
He literally just disappeared into the night, we couldn't find hide nor hair of him.
Very creepy and almost like a campfire tale, he might of been a ghost.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I have e-mail contact with a lot of people with very foreign names which are not familiar and determining their gender is very difficult.

In the course of business, which spanned 80 countries, I have written thousands of emails to people I have never met. And for me it was usually not a gender issue, but just trying to decide which was their first or last name -- because sometimes what I "expected" to be in "first name-last name" order just did not seem correct at times. Kind of like Dr. Smith John. And "John" was actually the last name... except in those cases when it wasn't and the name was in "last name - first name" order. Devil of a time addressing those email salutations. I sometimes did get it wrong.

Side note: Almost no one pronounces my last name "correctly" the first time unless I say it first.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I have e-mail contact with a lot of people with very foreign names which are not familiar and determining their gender is very difficult.

In the course of business, which spanned 80 countries, I have written thousands of emails to people I have never met. And for me it was usually not a gender issue, but just trying to decide which was their first or last name -- because sometimes what I "expected" to be in "first name-last name" order just did not seem correct at times. Kind of like Dr. Smith John. And "John" was actually the last name... except in those cases when it wasn't and the name was in "last name - first name" order. Devil of a time addressing those email salutations. I sometimes did get it wrong.

Side note: Almost no one pronounces my last name "correctly" the first time unless I say it first.

Yes, I know what you mean.   

The problem is there's an element of informality in Western societies and particularly in English - not what you say but how you say it.  Whereas in many other countries, they expect to be called by their titles to show an element of "respect" (especially in the public sector). 

So usually I resort to Director XYZ or I've  had to use Excellency Dr Al-Blah-Blah and Honourable Mr So-and-So and even Professor Dr ABC (Professor Dr?  Why?) when addressing someone.  Mr Vice-President and Mr President (no, not those ones) represent a bit of difficulty.  Madame President is usually OK but Madame Chairman is out these days so I try my luck with Madame Chairperson which doesn't quite the same ring. I suppose Madame Chairwoman would work OK.

Usually I have to ask someone else in the team how the senior person should be addressed.  If in doubt I use Sir for the male senior person and Madame for the female senior person.   I worked with a French guy and he said that's how he falls back in French (with translation).  It always sounded better when he said it with a French accent than in English.

The worst thing recently is forgetting the name of the person I'm speaking to.  If I have their business card, then I can have an unpronounceable name on the card which isn't helpful.     

BTW, presumably your family name is pronounced the German way?  "Al-eh" rather than "alley" ?  I''d have thought HU people get it 99% right first time.

In the US our last name is never pronounced correctly.
It's odd to hear it called out here in Hungary, sometimes I don't even know my own name!
My maiden name was also never pronounced correctly by my teachers in school in the US.
They always used a derogatory ( to my mind at least) term when calling my name out in class.
Maybe they were all too stupid to pronounce it right?
I always corrected them so maybe they did it to get under my skin.
Even as a child I always corrected the way the said my last name, it wasn't brain surgery.
Got so sick of being called,"PO lock". Not even close to the correct way of saying it. Name was with Paw...but with the Slav sound of V, we even made it easier for them by letting it go by a Paul... but only a few could say it correctly... Teachers? More like gate keepers.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Yes, I know what you mean.

I liked your solutions.

fluffy2560 wrote:

It always sounded better when he said it with a French accent than in English.

On the few occasions I can get my wife to speak French to me (one of her languages she uses far too infrequently in my opinion), I just about melt. I don't speak any French, and she could be saying the weather is fine today, and I still find it sexy.... 

fluffy2560 wrote:

The worst thing recently is forgetting the name of the person I'm speaking to.  If I have their business card, then I can have an unpronounceable name on the card which isn't helpful.

Oh, I know that well. On pretty much every business trip, that happens to me. I am very bad at remembering names.

fluffy2560 wrote:

BTW, presumably your family name is pronounced the German way?  "Al-eh" rather than "alley" ?  I''d have thought HU people get it 99% right first time.

Well, it probably should be pronounced the French way, due to the name's origins, but it isn't. That is why I put "correct" in quotes. My family name has become completely localized by my family in its pronunciation. Most of my family comes from the midwest and south. So "ee" is like "ey" in "alley", but the "a" gets that long Southern sound "ah" sound, a bit softer and rounder than the German "al".... you might hear such as when a local pronounces it "Sahvanna", not "Savanna" (ya' darn Yankees!).

fluffy2560 wrote:

.......Always wished to have a Lauren Bacall voice.
....

Gentleman prefer blondes
Who are husky and tallish
Not Brobdignagian
More Lauren Bacall-ish.

One of the problems of living with a Hungarian, on a day to day level, is not to know quite whether this huge stock of common, culture I suppose you would call it, that you pick up, is in her vocabulary or not. My missus is by no means stupid but to know whether she knows what an inch eight screw is. Of course it is all metric now but we are forever back-converting these things. I have the same problem the other way around, a mileometer or milometer, an odometer technically, what is a kilometerometer? She went for kilometerszamla which might be right (deliberately not checking) but klikometer might equally be better. No idea what the proper word is. These kinds of things catch you out every day.

Makes it fun of course, but there are all these little puzzles that do you do a literal translation or is it going to be a false friend etc. She is not convinced for example that you can get things other than screws at a csarvabolt, despite all evidence to the contrary.

French is kinda my second language, chronologically my third, but have forgotten most of my Arabic except the very basics. I tend to slip into French when I can't find the word for it in Hungarian. This of course does not help. It just takes a few seconds for one's brain to switch between languages,. this is why translation is so hard, while your brain, I call it "switching" but a friend of mine calls it "brainfog", I presume there is a technical word for it, while your brain kinda stumbles around to remember what language one is speaking. I read a brilliant essay/journal a couple of months ago that set out very clearly, the clearest I have ever seen it written, that multilingual people do not have some kind of translating engine in their heads, they think in that language and then to "switch" into the other language takes a few seconds. How do you translate Mr Potato Head for example? My brain starts reaching for Head Potato Monsignore or whatever until it remembers that  Mr Potato Head is Mr Potato Head.

There is a good book called Language Myths but I am not sure it is available online, it is quite old.

SimonTrew wrote:

One of the problems of living with a Hungarian, on a day to day level, is not to know quite whether this huge stock of common, culture I suppose you would call it, that you pick up, is in her vocabulary or not. My missus is by no means stupid but to know whether she knows what an inch eight screw is. Of course it is all metric now but we are forever back-converting these things. I have the same problem the other way around, a mileometer or milometer, an odometer technically, what is a kilometerometer? She went for kilometerszamla which might be right (deliberately not checking) but klikometer might equally be better. No idea what the proper word is. These kinds of things catch you out every day.

Makes it fun of course, but there are all these little puzzles that do you do a literal translation or is it going to be a false friend etc. She is not convinced for example that you can get things other than screws at a csarvabolt, despite all evidence to the contrary.

French is kinda my second language, chronologically my third, but have forgotten most of my Arabic except the very basics. I tend to slip into French when I can't find the word for it in Hungarian. This of course does not help. It just takes a few seconds for one's brain to switch between languages,. this is why translation is so hard, while your brain, I call it "switching" but a friend of mine calls it "brainfog", I presume there is a technical word for it, while your brain kinda stumbles around to remember what language one is speaking. I read a brilliant essay/journal a couple of months ago that set out very clearly, the clearest I have ever seen it written, that multilingual people do not have some kind of translating engine in their heads, they think in that language and then to "switch" into the other language takes a few seconds. How do you translate Mr Potato Head for example? My brain starts reaching for Head Potato Monsignore or whatever until it remembers that  Mr Potato Head is Mr Potato Head.

There is a good book called Language Myths but I am not sure it is available online, it is quite old.

You need to learn to think, convert and speak metric.

When I'm talking to my American friends in chat I automatically write in their lingo. It's just practice

SimCityAT wrote:

You need to learn to think, convert and speak metric.

I can speak metric and can convert most units in my head. And I am well aware that a US pint is not the same as a UK pint etc. The trouble is that I use metric measure at work and Imperial/US Customary at home so once again I am forever doing these conversions just of units in my head without using a slide rule or ready reckoner. I just think in Imperial when at home in daily life, and in metric when at my scientific work. I do think in metric if things come in metric but many things do not come in metric or to be more correct SI units  but not everything does.

You will not get a 25mm bolt onto an inch nut however hard you try because they have different threa pitches.

For example, what do Hungarians use for water fittings, BSA 1/4 and 1/2 threads. What do the British use, on modern threads, 12mm or 15mm threads.  And you can get away with it but you will not get a British water inline valve onto Hungarian plumbing unless you are really bodging it with a stackload of PTFE and gum.

I ask the wife what is Hungarian for "inch" and she does not know. (It comes from the Latin "uncia" which means thumb, by the way, so you can hardly say that inches are not European )

I do everything in pounds and ounces when I am cooking for example. How do you translate quarterpounder it is untranslatable. It is not a 113grammerburger or whatever is it )

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

.......Always wished to have a Lauren Bacall voice.
....

Gentleman prefer blondes
Who are husky and tallish
Not Brobdignagian
More Lauren Bacall-ish.

Oi! Wasn't me who posted that, it was Marilyn.

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

.......Always wished to have a Lauren Bacall voice.
....

Gentleman prefer blondes
Who are husky and tallish
Not Brobdignagian
More Lauren Bacall-ish.

Oi! Wasn't me who posted that, it was Marilyn.

Oops, sorry.

SimonTrew wrote:

..... She went for kilometerszamla which might be right (deliberately not checking) but klikometer might equally be better. No idea what the proper word is. These kinds of things catch you out every day.

Makes it fun of course, but there are all these little puzzles that do you do a literal translation or is it going to be a false friend etc. She is not convinced for example that you can get things other than screws at a csarvabolt, despite all evidence to the contrary.
...

Mrs Fluffy has the same problem.  But Hungarian doesn't seem to have a way to rapidly and organically introduce new words or they don't work in spreading in the same way.  To me it seems it's slow to catch up and the Hungarian official words system has to work possibly before people use the words in their daily lives.   Mrs Fluffy says they just use the foreign words in the middle of the sentence.  She says there's no words for Mountain Bike unlike in French (VTT). So if there was a newspaper report, it'd just say mountain bike or phonetic equivalent.  Club being Klub is a good example - been Hungarianised.   How do things like "Smartphone" or "App" work? No idea.

Years ago  I tried to use the phrase "dumb terminal" on a project and it was translated as "buta terminal" or something like it.  Then we went through other iterations like "nem intelligent" terminals or thereabouts.  We never actually got to the proper official description.

I can personally vouch for more than screws at the csarvabolt place.  One of my local ones also sells csapagy as well.

SimonTrew wrote:

....
For example, what do Hungarians use for water fittings, BSA 1/4 and 1/2 threads. What do the British use, on modern threads, 12mm or 15mm threads.  And you can get away with it but you will not get a British water inline valve onto Hungarian plumbing unless you are really bodging it with a stackload of PTFE and gum.

Nah, the pipes are described as 15mm, 22mm, 28mm etc but the screw threads are 1/2", 3/8", 3/4"  BSP (British Standard Plumbing).  The main sizes in a house in Europe are 15/22mm. It all makes perfect sense if you solder brass 1/2" fittings onto 15/22mm pipe.  You can see the inside bores are almost the same size so as not to make a difference.  All you need is some horsehair and the sealant in a tube and the job is done.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Maybe her hormones are off?
There is nothing sultry or sexy about it, it's creepy.

How do you make a hormone? Don't pay her.

I worked out why the Internet was off for a couple of days last week for me, that there are cats well new kittens up in the loft and playing with the cables not chewing through them but just knocked the main ethernet cable out the back of it. Saw the first of the new kittens this morning they must just be ready to flee the nest or whatever it is that kittens do, leap from the cat's cradle. Like most Hungarian roofs mine has huge gaps in the tiles and my next door neighbour is a roofer so obviously I will give him the job and not a word to VO but it is such a big job.

The thing that puzzles me, and this always puzzles me here, is why don't you put in a loft trap so you can actually get up into the loft, I can work out how to get to one half of the loft but not the other half (There are kinda two large lofts). Why would you not put in any access to it? Presumably loft traps and loft ladders exist in Hungary although I have never seen them so how is one supposed to get into one's loft? I appreciate that in Hungary nothing works quite like it does in Britain but I puzzle over why you wouldn't put in any access to your own loft/attic.

I with fluffy have still not worked out how to find a place to dispose of mineral oil properly and safely. It seems it is not possible and obviously you don't want to be chucking that down the drain, that ruins all kinds of subterannean gubbins and is generally Not A Good Thing. I don't use a lot of the stuff because I don't run a car, but I suppose the people who do oil changes have some kind of way of disposing of it short of throwing it in the Duna/Danube. But an oil change is such a simple job to do on a car that there should be a reasonably easy way to dispose of it but does not seem to be, you cannot drop it off in a jerry-can at your local petrol station for example.

Our local petrol station has a Spar Express attached which is open 24 hours, and since I tend to keep rather odd hours I use that sometimes. I was in there the other night and one of the staff on her fag break was lighting up a cigarette in the forecourt. I told her politely but firmly that it is not the best idea to be smoking in front of probably 20 thousand litres of petrol/gas/benzin because not only that petrol station but probably half of the kerulet would go up in smoke. I don't think she quite got the picture of why combustible fumes, a lit cigarette, might not be a good idea.

I am a smoker but safety first. I have managed to burn my house down with a carelessly discarded cigarette, but to be smoking on a gas station forecourt is just ridiculously dangerous. The worst thing, I suppose, is her manager never told her when you have a cigarette go a bit of a distance away, don't smoke it right by the pumps. Oh well.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

.......Always wished to have a Lauren Bacall voice.
....

Gentleman prefer blondes
Who are husky and tallish
Not Brobdignagian
More Lauren Bacall-ish.

Well everyone has their own style.
My son is very pale, a natural redheaded green eyed super tall slim man who prefers dark eyed dark haired beauties who are not very tall. His first wife however was tall, 5'10" but dark eyed and dark haired, half Hungarian Gypsy, slim and tall , they actually looked good together since he is 6'3".

My one bro was married to a tough black ex military US Army MP who dressed very stylish and had a fantastic laugh. Now he is married to a short blue eyed blonde, only thing those two women have in common is they are both strong and tough. His new wife is a aircraft mechanic, now she is head of a crew and works mostly in the office.She's the boss, worked in that industry more then 35 years, longer then my bro has.
My youngest bro first wife was his school sweet heart, blue eyed blonde, second wife was Mexican and now he is married for the 3rd time to another blue eyed blonde.
My bro is mistaken for a Mexican all the time, long hair beard and native American complexion.
Over 6 feet tall and a bit scary if you didn't know him. Doesn't scare me, I used to change his dappies.
3 of my male cousins are married to Thai ladies. One cousin met his wife in Thailand when they both were teaching over there. They other 2 cousins are on the second marriages, decided to marry Asians like my son has, they all say they make the best wives. No trouble or hassles, easy going ladies. I have to agree so far with that statement.

My husband had dated all sorts of ladies in Hungary, tall slim, short and cute, he does prefer
long legs, that's another matter all together.
I've seen old photos of a few of his old flames,all lookers.
I ask him what would happen if we ever ran into one of them here on the street. He said he wouldn't even know who there are after so many years, they are all probably either granny's by now or pushing daisies.

You're short and tall and thin and fat and blonde and brunette and that is just the sort of girl I crave,

groucho marx to margaret dumont in animal crackers but just off the top of my head. (I have an Italian Army haircut, it retreats rapidly,)

SimonTrew wrote:

You're short and tall and thin and fat and blonde and brunette and that is just the sort of girl I crave,

groucho marx to margaret dumont in animal crackers but just off the top of my head. (I have an Italian Army haircut, it retreats rapidly,)

Oh I used to love the Marx Brothers. Groucho, Harpo, Karl...

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My son is very pale, a natural redheaded

My hair is ginger but not really, I mean it changes colour in the sunlight, sometimes in summer it is nearly blonde, in winter nearly brown. of course a lot of grey in it now, and if i wear a beard it is what is called in Britain a salt-and-pepper beard, a mix of ginger and grey. I only have blue eyes well they are not really very blue.

All these things are genetic really so it is not unusual to be green eyed and blonde haired, as the blue/green eye colour gene is tied to the blonde/brown hair colour gene, that is a recessive gene going on there, nothing wrong with it but your son is unlikely to pass that on to his children.

Possible but quite unlikely, exactly a 1 in 32 chance if he just plucked a woman at random.

Handlebar moustaches on men seem to be the fashion this year (among younger Hungarians). I asked the missus what is the Hungarian for handlebar moustache but she doesn't know.- I can look it up but with Google Translate the problem is you are likely to have your own words repeated back at you because with statistical translation it will take the likeliest hit it can find. Google Translate is good for a very quick rough translation, first draft, but don't ever trust it. kormány bajusz it gives me magyarul but I would have to check that, it is plausible though.

Huszarbajusz is the better translation according to the missus, i.e. the moustaches that the Hussars wore.

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

.......Always wished to have a Lauren Bacall voice.
....

Gentleman prefer blondes
Who are husky and tallish
Not Brobdignagian
More Lauren Bacall-ish.

Oi! Wasn't me who posted that, it was Marilyn.

Ha, ha, it's 2018, anything goes.... Better to have a Bacall voice then a Tiny Tim voice.

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My son is very pale, a natural redheaded

My hair is ginger but not really, I mean it changes colour in the sunlight, sometimes in summer it is nearly blonde, in winter nearly brown. of course a lot of grey in it now, and if i wear a beard it is what is called in Britain a salt-and-pepper beard, a mix of ginger and grey. I only have blue eyes well they are not really very blue.

All these things are genetic really so it is not unusual to be green eyed and blonde haired, as the blue/green eye colour gene is tied to the blonde/brown hair colour gene, that is a recessive gene going on there, nothing wrong with it but your son is unlikely to pass that on to his children.

Possible but quite unlikely, exactly a 1 in 32 chance if he just plucked a woman at random.

True, unless my boy marries a white lady, the chances of us seeing another red headed kid are slim to none.
My husband's mom and grandmother and great grandmother were redheads in Hungary, my husband was allot more auburn/ light sunny brown headed in his youth, still has a red beard.
His older bro is a red head, thick curly red hair. My family and our son have straight red hair, seems more rare to see straight red hair then curly.
My grandmother on my dad's side was a red head, so it's pretty strong in the fam to get red heads.
I have tons of male red headed cousins but their mom was Irish.
I sometimes do wish we had a daughter, if she turned out to be as good looking as our boy did, then we really would be having to hire her a body guard.  ( Yes, guess I'm being a proud mom here, a bit)
Nothing to me is cuter then a little red headed kid, freckles or no freckles they just look so cute and sad at the same time.Like dolls.
Speaking of body guards, my MIL was rather good looking in her youth, I was a bit shocked seeing her old photos from the 1940's and late 30's.
Anyways, she had 8 older brothers, 7 that lived to adulthood.
Can you even imagine trying to get a date with 7 big brothers watching every move?
Out of the 9 kids only my MIL and one brother were red headed. She had a twin bro who passed at 2 months old, not sure what his hair color was, poor little Bela...He was the runt of the litter I guess.
It was very common in those days to lose a child or two from natural causes.

SimonTrew wrote:

Handlebar moustaches on men seem to be the fashion this year (among younger Hungarians).

Phtt...... "Fashion"

I have had a handle bar for years. Even remember when it was darn near impossible to find a decent wax. When I finally did, it was from a little old lady who made it up on her kitchen stove.

klsallee wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

Handlebar moustaches on men seem to be the fashion this year (among younger Hungarians).

Phtt...... "Fashion"

I have had a handle bar for years. Even remember when it was darn near impossible to find a decent wax. When I finally did, it was from a little old lady who made it up on her kitchen stove.

I am incredibly old fashioned when it comes to dress.. I don't wear any at all most of the time that is my mode of dress (not in public of course I am fortunate to have a very private garden so nobody can accuse me of being an exhibitionist or whatever when i just prefer  to be naked). When I am not wearing nothing my standard mode of dress is either shirt and tie and suit, smart boots, but these days tends to be more a pair of painty blue overalls (with matching cufflinks, natch) this week's task is the dining room to be.

But it just seems to be the fashion this year. Much nicer than those straggly dangly beards when people cannot be bothered to shave and pretend it is fashion,

Sometimes In have a goatee sometimes cleanshaven but always with a cutthroat and even with a beard or goatee it is always nice and trimmed not just a mess.

SimonTrew wrote:

.....The thing that puzzles me, and this always puzzles me here, is why don't you put in a loft trap so you can actually get up into the loft, I can work out how to get to one half of the loft but not the other half (There are kinda two large lofts). Why would you not put in any access to it? Presumably loft traps and loft ladders exist in Hungary although I have never seen them so how is one supposed to get into one's loft? I appreciate that in Hungary nothing works quite like it does in Britain but I puzzle over why you wouldn't put in any access to your own loft/attic.

There's a lack of foresight or acceptance of "new" ideas in Hungary.  Presumably the attic/loft was for storing grass for the animals and that wasn't stuff taken through the house but stored in the attic/loft via an outside ladder.   In my own case, I had to argue strongly with my builder to get him to fully board, insulate, install small windows (actually for chimney maintenance) and install an inside hatch for my roof space. It's obvious it's storage space. 

He was unable to understand why anyone would want to do this.  He was quite keen on doing what he thought I needed, not what I told him I wanted (typically Hungarian).  But we stopped all that since we're now wise to that kind of behaviour.   But they are still dimwitted and fail to follow instructions - our bathroom ceiling fans are not ducted to the outside but go into the roof space - utterly not what we told them to do.  We even provided the special roof tiles but they never put them in and we didn't notice until it was too late.  Now that needs fixing otherwise it'll introduce damp into the roof space. D'oh!

You can easily get roof ladders in Bauhaus but for some dip***t reason, they are mainly folding wood ones, not sliding aluminium.   The metal ones are "special".  Stupid.

Incidentally our potential landscaper tells me it's a waste of money building a wood storage area under some decking. I don't see why he cares.  He's being very Hungarian - another one of these people trying to tell me what I want and need.  I have to insist - "this is the way it's going to be, so just STFU and get on with it!"

My missus managed to kick over a big can of Dulux at 4am and spilled it, I dunno how she managed it cos it was all sealed and never opened,

I think she just wanted to give vent to her emulsions.

SimonTrew wrote:

(True story) My missus managed to kick over a big can of Dulux at 4am while getting ready to go to the airport for an early flight, and she spilled it, I dunno how she managed it cos it was all sealed and never opened, usually takes a sodding angle grinder to get the lids off those.

I think she just wanted to give vent to her emulsions.

fluffy2560 wrote:

There's a lack of foresight...

I think you have hit the nail on the thumb there,.  no the place was never used for animal fodder or as a barn, it is a rather large extension to the place on the original deed (on the same plot), They spent a fortune putting in a wellness/jacuzzi but didnt say to the builders oh can I have access to it,. I have a stepladder etc of course but there is this tendencz in Hungary and UK for  builders to get away with the minimum. I believe that builders have headstones set at an angle of twenty degrees off the vertical marked with the inscription "That'll do".

I will call someone in when there is something I know is beyond me, that I know is beyond me for example I am not going anywhere near gas. Know how it works, know how not to light a cigarette etc, in theory it should be the same as water but in practice, you get a plumber's leak you tighten it up or loosen it off. With gas your house blows up if you are not sure what you are doing, so I just don't touch it, I know my limits. Sparks, I am Part P qualified and beyond sorting out which colour is where (old wiring etc) I know what I am on about. I do not mind saying this in public that fluffy helped me a bit to orient myself because it is the first time I have done wiring in Hungary and it is rather a mix of old and new, but it is a damned sight safer than it was. This habit of putting earth wire on a double pole double throw would be absolutely illegal in the UK quite rightly but is the normal habit here so never trust that your green, or green and yellow, is actually going to be an earth (föld), quite often it is not. That is completely against all EU regs for wiring but is surprisingly common, just don't trust any wire before you have checked it. I am saying this out loud because I know what I am doing with sparks and I will work live with them, but just never trust that what it says it is, it actually is. At best it will knock you out at worst you are taking a one way trip to the témeto. i studied four years of electrical and electronic engineering, worked for a manufacturer of submarine cable, I KNOW what I am doing. If in doubt do not touch, SImon Trew MIET CEng.

fluffy2560 wrote:

He was quite keen on doing what he thought I needed, not what I told him I wanted (typically Hungarian).

Your entire post brought back some PTSD symptoms of dealing with workers while trying to do our own home renovations here.

Good grief...... Everything you said I experienced too. 

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

There's a lack of foresight...

I think you have hit the nail on the thumb there,.  no the place was never used for animal fodder or as a barn,...

I meant in general.  So many houses in HU have this outside ladder system.  Never understood why it was like that. Even my shed/outbuilding is like that.  I'm screwed the door shut and cut a hole in the ceiling and use a ladder to get up there from the inside.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

He was quite keen on doing what he thought I needed, not what I told him I wanted (typically Hungarian).

Your entire post brought back some PTSD symptoms of dealing with workers while trying to do our own home renovations here.

Good grief...... Everything you said I experienced too. 

Mrs Fluffy and I think there's unwillingness to admit they don't know or "they think, it's always done this way and will be done this way forever more".   All I could say was, "this ain't the way it's going to be done here".  Really insisting works somewhat but even after you think that they've understood, you've have to effectively stand over them to make sure they've actually got it and not been nodding stupidly.

Some years ago, when I first came to Hungary, there used to be many workplace discussions about work efficiency in Eastern Europe.  While Hungarian workers seem cheaper, it was generally thought you need more supervision.   So in a Western context (circa mid-1990s), you could have say, 1 supervisor to 8 workers, in Hungary, it was more like 1 supervisor for 4 workers or even less.  I see this still in some countries that haven't "modernised" or embraced Western thinking - typically FSU (Former Soviet Union) countries with autocratic leaders.  Don't see it in Asia who just seem industrious whatever the situation.