What do I call this?
2007-05-13 - 4:27 p.m.

I guess I ended up having somewhat duplicate entries from 5-7 and 5-8 because I thought Diaryland ate my entry from 5-7, but I realized yesterday that it indeed was there. It just didn't show up right away, for whatever reason.

I have no idea why the picture of the sweatsuit is so huge in the 5-7 entry and not in the 5-8 entry. Weird.

Anyway...B's first week at his new job seemed to go pretty well, although he was exhausted. He was being trained Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (I think) and then Wednesday afternoon he got his first real dictations to transcribe. The very first one was a real toughy for him because the speaker was difficult to understand, but I think things got better after that. He has a three-day weekend because his schedule is now Tuesday through Saturday. That's pretty much been my schedule too, except I've been working half-days on Sundays here lately to earn some extra money.

Yesterday I transcribed an interview with a plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills. He'd been in an accident in a parking lot and he had a really arrogant attitude. (Shocker!) What's really crazy is, I've seen this guy on TV on one of those makeover shows. His interview was really short, but he managed to mention several times that he was a doctor (why that was relevant, I don't know) and he was VERY defensive about the whole thing. IMO, that means he's really at fault. Basically, he's a rich bastard who thinks he's above the law because he's a big-shot doctor. Whoop-de-do.

I kept up with my jogging for about a week, but it was just killing me, so I've changed to very fast walking. Ironically, I can walk faster than I can jog. I can walk a mile in 23 minutes and I probably could do it in 20 minutes, except I walk slowly for the first five minutes to warm up. I think that's pretty good.

P and E were the only ones who made it over for cards Friday night, but the four of us still had fun. I opened the bottle of champagne that I got from W0rld M@rket a couple weeks ago, thinking that I could share it, but E didn't want any and P only had a little splash. Unfortunately, I didn't like it very much. It's a little too dry for my taste, but I tried mixing it with juice and that helped.

I was telling P and E about this particular language idiosyncrasy I've been hearing in the interviews I transcribe. I hear people say "whenever" in place of "when." For example, instead of saying, "I got hit when I turned left," they'll say, "I got hit whenever I turned left." That makes it sound like they get hit every time they turn left, doesn't it? I wonder how this kind of thing developed? It sounds so strange to me. Obviously, nobody said it like that where I grew up. I'll have to make a note of where these people are from that are saying this.

Hearing various accents from different parts of the country is really interesting for me. The one I abhor is the Louisiana/Mississippi accent, though, because I cannot understand these people, especially if they're older folks. It's interesting to listen to, but nearly impossible to transcribe.

I've noticed that folks from Pennsylvania and other northeastern areas of the country say their O's in a kind of exaggerated dipthong way. I'm from Ohio, so I have a bit of that in my speech too, but the sound is much more pronounced in other areas, particularly Pennsylvania. I couldn't begin to describe this sound, so I won't even try, but just listen to some of Heather's vlog entries and you'll hear her say it. (*Hi, Heather!*)

One of the most interesting accents to me isn't an American accent, but Australian. Somehow they have really mangled the vowels in the English language. Okay, I guess I shouldn't say mangled, because that sounds too negative. My point is, many of the vowel sounds they use are really complicated sounds. How did that develop from Brittish English, I wonder? I've noticed that Cockney sounds a bit like the Australian accent, so there must be some connection there.

Okay, enough boring language stuff.

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