Monday, August 14, 2006

Knowing One's Letters

You know how there are people who just hate to write? Well obviously I’m not one of them but Bert is. He loves to read and is quite literate but, for him, the act of writing is a terrible chore. The only stuff he writes down on a regular basis are the names of plants when he’s writing invoices and making out orders. He usually tries to get me to fill in his other forms and to write his letters for him. The other day he had a reference to write and, as usual, tried to palm the task off to me. I suggested I dictate it to him and he could write it. He struggled with it for a while. Then he asked,

“How do you make an F?”

“It’s the first letter of fremontodendron.”

“Right.”


But at least he can spell ‘blatant’.

Another person having trouble with letters at her first aid training is Hannah.

As always there's some total eejit that says something stupid and, as always, it's me who says it. We were given several letters. G C L I P S. We were told they were the 1st letter to several words that were all different types of blood-loss wounds. He gave us the answer to G (graze) and told us to figure out the rest. We worked in groups and each group got the same answers. We all got all but one right. We all thought C was for cut but when the guy said they were all kinds of cuts and what else could it be, I yelled out,

"Castration''

"Sorry, what?" yer fella says.

"Castration", says I, "You know when your hand is cut off or something.''

"You mean amputation Hannah?" he says with a smile.

"Aye that's what I mean."

''Castration's something else Hannah but we'll chat about that later" he says, still smiling, everyone laughing.

"Aye but it's still a blood-loss wound." says I, going bright red.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here, I gots my letters fine rightly. I just cannae be arsed to do the spelling all of the time.

[/exits stage right, muttering something about 'of all the posts to screw up the spelling on']

Nelly said...

I can do simple mathematical calculations very quickly in my head but if you were to say to me "Now I owed you £30.50 but you owe me £25 and I've just paid £10.60 for lunch and we're halving it so you owe me...." my brain would short circuit and I'd get all confused. But spelling? Pease of pis.

Anonymous said...

The correct answer to that mathematical problem is simple:

"Now I owed you £30.50 but you owe me £25 and I've just paid £10.60 for lunch and we're halving it so you get the first round in and we'll call it even. Mine's a pint with a whiskey chaser."

Nelly said...

Genius mathematical solution. What's the equation?

Anonymous said...

There's no equation as such. There is a well known proof of the scheme, though:


Let x = person who owes 30.50
Let y = person who owes 25
Let z = cost of lunch
Let £ = amount of debt owed to y by x
Let $ = amount of debt owed to x by y
Let % be final debt

Therefore £ = 30.5-25-z/2
$ = 25-30.5+z/2
Therefore £ = -$

M = memory retention of x & y
D = drink bought by x & y
C = amount by which x & y care

M decreases as D increases
D increases with time
Therefore M decreases with time

As M decreases, C decreases
Therefore C decreases with time

As C approaches 0, so does %

Therefore, as amount of drink purchased increases, nobody cares about the debt.

Bliss said...

I've hastily scribbled this down, and will utilize it fully to resolve some outstanding debts. :)

Nelly said...

My screen is covered with particles of exploded brain (mine)

Ed remind me never to loan you money.

Anonymous said...

Nelly: never load me money.

Anonymous said...

Ed's list of 'Things to do Today' for 15/8/06, item number 3:

Learn how to spell.

Nelly said...

Neither a lender nor a loader be.