to think that asking if a peacock is male is a really stupid question?

[Vagabond]

I was sitting outside my local pub the other day admiring the local peacock (who was all a-preening). The ladies at the next table to were also admiring said peacock. When the waiter came over, they asked him if the peacock was male or female! I almost fell of my chair?

AIBU?

Yes Batman has martial arts and money. I think I probably assumed he was part bat or something. Spiderman being a bit arachnid and everything, it seemed logical. No. Just a fancy cape.

ps Not a lot of people know that blackbirds are actually a member of the thrush family, as are robins. [showing off emoticon]

You'll no doubt be entertained to discover that the family is Turdus. Would have suited gulls or pigeons better maybe.

In English, Irish people say they speak Irish, Welsh people say they speak Welsh, French people say they speak French and so on. Gaelic is a generic term that lumps a lot of somewhat similar languages together. Many European languages are Romance languages in that they come from Latin, but no one would say they speak Romance would they? Equally there is a family of Germanic languages but no one actually speaks Bavarian Germanic, they speak German or Deutsch. I speak Irish or Gaeilge.

Jessie, I'd imagine all three of those languages would be very very difficult for a native English speaker to learn as an adult. They bear very very little resemblance to English and have very complicated grammatical structures.

I always feel rather stupid not knowing a single language of any of the countries that are next door. Does anyone else in England ever feel like that?

I'm a bit of a bird geek too.

Why not learn French Jessie? Far easier than Irish and more use in the long run.

"juneybean Sun 28-Nov-10 00:50:17
are you taking the piss? is there seriously such thing as a peahen?
"

Sorry juney but PMSL

no you are right, it is hard for some people :)

OK, would it help if I confessed I used to think tigers were female lions? DH still calls them lady lions to tease me to this day.

Showaddywaddy, if I were to goose you at this moment, what would you anser?

(very sad bird geek joke, and still without looking anything up)

arf

I'm so easily pleased.

I have a terror of French due to reading too much Enid Blyton as a child. (St Clare's books with Doris who-couldn't-roll-her-R's). I speak a leetle bit like a famous over-paid BBC prat. Parental advice was also "no way can you manage French, Jessie" too. I know a limited amount of Latin and German instead.

Are the rolled R's still compulsory?

Spanish is pretty useful. French is also useul, as a country next door where English is not (one of) the official language(s).

Woah. I am seriously confused. My Irish DH has always referred to Irish as Gaelic. As do all of his family.

Okay, now I'm scared of Irish too. How about Welsh? It always sounds really nice. Possibly one of the worst reasons for learning a language, but...

Maryz don't tell anyone (especially not my mother, who is an Irish teacher) but I totally agree with you. God so many hours of school are wasted learning that bloody language. Doing it for the Leaving Cert was hell on earth. Even my mum agrees to a certain extent.

Nope. DH is Dublin born and bred as his family.

That's dead weird Chickens, cos your DH would have learned Irish at school and it would only ever have been called Irish. Are you sure he wasn't referring to "The Gaelic" which means the Gaelic games like football and hurling? That's the only context in which I've ever heard the word Gaelic used in Ireland.

Juneybean - please tell me you didn't ring your Mum at 1am to ask her? (You must be in a different time zone no?). (PS: No big deal not knowing about Peanhens - life will still go on as we know it!).

I know there are peahens & peacocks -however, had I been sat at that table it's quite feasible I would have said 'I don't know - ask the waiter' a) because I fancied a laugh!! or b) because I wasn't really thinking about it (quite often I'm on another planet).

Nope. If he was explaining the Irish word for something, he'd say 'Irish', but he'd refer to the language as 'Irish Gaelic'. MIL taught the DC to count etc and referred to it as 'Irish' or 'Gaelic'. The terms have always been quite interchangable. Maybe they're taking pity on me 'cause I'm English

Yeah that could be it Chickens. Irish people are quite aware that British people tend to call it Gaelic so they might have been saying it for your benefit. I know if I said Gaelic to a bunch of Irish people they'd automatically assume I meant the Gaelic games and if I tried to use it to refer to the language they'd think I was very very odd.