Interview for Betty Confidential

Hey I’m first responder to the HotForWords tweet “Interview for Betty Confidential”. Is that cool or what?

I even read the interview, and I learned more new things about Marina. Excellent interview Marina. I’m glad that you chose the road that you did. Waiting for hours on set seems such a waste of time. I’ve been on a set all day, and even though it was exciting as a visitor, it would drive me nuts to hurry up and wait.

Very nice picture of our teacher.

Great interview. I could tell you still tried to talk the same way as if you were in Russia and forget to use articles the way we do when we normally speak English. I may be wrong, but that’s how I read the article. :smile:

I picked it up on my Face book where she had posted it. But I was here first it just took me longer to read the article about her and come up with a Home Work answer. :razz: :smile:

.

By the way, where is you Home Work answer? Hmmmm :lol:

Hi Mike, that’s what I was going to say, that Marina forgets the articles. I noticed that the article had lots of edits, whereby they appeared to have replaced the various pronouns.

For example, in the first MO: response,
one of Marina’s sentences is written as:
“I’ll just do [YouTube] as a hobby and see how it goes.”

My guess is that, in the interview, Marina may have said;
“I’ll just do it as a hobby and see how it goes.”
and the editor replaced “it” with “YouTube”. I noticed that they did that in many places. I think that is a great idea and gives clarity to the interview.

That is one reason we listen to her is her unique accent and pronunciations of words and sentences. The other is obvious. We like to learn. ;-)

Regarding your question Marina, as I mentioned below, is it the missing articles, “the” and “a”?

Here is an example from the interview.

In your 3rd response (the last paragraph on page 1 of the interview), the editor made the correction in the next to last sentence by inserting the word “a” as shown in the following sentence.

Marina said (editor corrected):
“I love it, they always promote my website,
and they are [a] very popular show…”

Where Marina originally said:
“I love it, they always promote my website,
and they are very popular show…”

The Google ad under the video was for men rubber underwear and man thongs.

Who’s your target audience? Muscle men who pee in their pants. lol :lol:

Hey Marina, I liked the reference to “Baby Einstein”,
“So it’s like Einstein for adults…”
Keep them entertained while educating.
But, does it get me quiet like the babies?
Nope, makes me wanna, errr, ahhh,
makes me wanna learn, yeah, that’s it. :lol:

Disagreement about the terms ‘philology’ and ‘linguistics’

I’m interested in the question how phrases with omitted articles are perceived by native English speakers. Except the feeling that something is grammatically incorrect – how the subjective sense and meaning of the phrase changes because of this type of mistakes?

Dear Marina,
Please don’t worry about those who complain about your English, such as articles you leave out (the, this, etc.) or words you may mispronounce (deus, Spokane, laconic, etc.). It’s easier for us to understand you if you would include the articles, and unless you’ve heard every word many times, it’s probable you’ll occassionally mispronounce a word. You actually speak much better English than many Russian or Chinese people I’ve met. (The Chinese don’t use articles, either.)

I’ve studied Russian for a few hours, and I’m sure I’d make many mistakes if I tried to speak to you in Russian. :!:

On a happier note, you birthday is coming, soon. Last year, I sent you a birthday card. I hope you got it, Would you like a special Christmas present? How abou a seafood dinner, dancing, and then, a sleep over at your pkace? I think you’d like it.
Seesixcm6

Great [article]. Those words you leave out makes your Russian accent come through. And I’ll take that over “proper” English any day.

So I have a question about the articles inspired by the post above :)
Remaining the whole context of these sentences (that Marina tends to omit all types of articles, not a specific sort of them, and in general, not in that one situation), what would be the difference of meaning between the two versions:
“…that Marina forgets the articles.”
“…that Marina forgets articles.”
?

English without (the?) articles is like Latina sine flexione :) I think the articles are the hardest part of English for the people who don’t speak it since the birth childhood. The articles seems to be pretty clear with the concrete nouns, but the difficulty grows dramatically when it comes to the abstract nouns. Even the word ‘noun’ generates difficulties here, because it needs distinction between an instance of noun and the general concept of noun every time. I don’t think I’ll be ever able to learn use articles more than 60-70% correctly.

:lol: Lust or bust…. :lol:

You beautiful Russian women often leave out articles, like “a” and “the,” It’s part of your charm.

Marina speaks better English than most people in Arkansas, Oklahoma or Texas. :)

;-) Betty

I must say (as a professional photographer) Jennifer Moss did an outstanding portrait of you in this image you provided Betty. I have seen you captured professionally and candidly and Ms. Moss has captured your true beauty. Compliments to the photographer (and her staff) and to the subject! ;-)

DO THE WORD [SOLES] :mrgreen:

:| Helen Fisher – LUST, ROMANCE, ATTACHMENT 57:38

That is a very beautiful still photo or portrait of you at the beginning of your “Betty” interview. And I saw the video at the end. My dad used to call me a “dummy” all the time when I was a kid. It is amazing that anyone would want to exploit me for my brains. Do remember Edison’s famous line about success being 1% Inspiration and %99 perspiration! I liked his Menlo Park replica shop at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

Years ago, a friend pointed out something to me about how the actor, Tom Cruise, was going about building his career.

After Top Gun established him, he began to do film after film where he co-starred along side various established Actors – Paul Newman, Robert Duvall. Dustin Hoffman. Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Jack Nicholson – each with their own demographic and fan base.

Fans would show up to the movies to see their favored actor and also be exposed to Tom Cruise. Pretty soon they were Tom Cruise fans too…

…and now those Actors are also known for having appeared in a Tom Cruise Movie!

Marina’s plan to do instructional DVD’s and/or Books, etc. with established personalities in different fields – like ‘HotforPoker’ with Vanessa Rousso and other projects – once again FLOORS ME as a REALLY SMART calculation as to how to expand and enhance the Brand she has worked so hard to create.

The concept fits her Brand perfectly, and will broaden her recognition to more and more people with varying interests in different walks of life who might also benefit from learning about word origins. The directions it can go are endless which is even more cool!

The breadth, scope, and variety of her press pieces and interviews both Domestically and Internationally is also worth noting!

I see a special Monument coming in the City of Arzamas in the future… :grin:

Did you fall for the sex and love? Helen on WHEELS…or this

The breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment in the Middle Ages and early modern times for public execution by [cudgeling] to death. It was used during the Middle Ages and was still in use into the 19th century.

;-) the intravenous route is the fastest ways to deliver fluids and medications throughout the body :arrow:

Intravenous therapy or IV therapy is the giving of liquid substances directly into a vein. It can be intermittent or continuous; continuous administration is called an intravenous drip. The word intravenous simply means “within a vein”, but is most commonly used to refer to IV therapy. Therapies administered intravenously are often called specialty pharmaceuticals.

Hello fglrx, if I remember correctly, you are from Poland. I work with a lady from Poland and have known and worked with many people from Poland and Russia.

Your question,
“… how the subjective sense and meaning
of the phrase changes because of this type of mistakes?”

To me, it does not matter and to me it does not alter the meaning of a speaker. I have never found it to be a problem working with the lady from Poland and others who have a strong accent and who also do not use the articles.

Your example below;
“…that Marina forgets the articles.”
“…that Marina forgets articles.”

Both sentence communicate the same idea to me and there is no change in meaning. Maybe there are sentences where the meaning might be altered. I can’t think of any. In cases where there might be subjective doubt, I ask the speaker for clarification and that resolves any ambiguities.

Here is some background information about Russian grammar and why Marina would omit certain words such as the articles,
“a, an, the”

Articles and the verb “to be”:
In the present tense, the verb “to be” is generally omitted and therefore Russian also has no articles (a, an, the), and has no common words for “is” or “are.” In writing, the “is,” among other things, it is represented by a dash, but not always.

Spoken Russian can be quite terse, but understanding it is not overly difficult. Also, the word order, is much freer in Russian than in English. The passive voice is often used in English to change the word order, you can do the same in Russian while keeping the active voice. That is not to say that passive constructions are rare in Russian; they are quite often used in regular speech, particularly statements of want, need or like, along with various indirect or impersonal constructions.

Here is a page of Russian grammar rules.
http://www.ielanguages.com/russian.html

I can’t stand it when editors add words that was not said. You don’t do YouTube. That’s absurd. Next thing you’ll hear people doing apple pie. You don’t do brand names!!!

I’ve had teachers ripe the hell out of my stories. They had more red ink than black. What a great way to encourage learning. Why do writings have to be so… perfect? Why can’t they have some flaws? I guess there are two camps in this world, those who think plastic surgery on articles is a necessity while others that like it natural.

Ok enough of my soap box. I did enjoy the article very much so. I also learned something about Marina that most of you don’t see in the articles but is there in black and white. $

Btw, Articles was used in a game show “Are you smarter than a 5th grader.” The contestant got the question wrong. He didn’t know what an article was. I didn’t know either. :-O

I agree with your observations. I see Russian is more flexible or simpler to construct sentences. The language seem a bit rude or strict in flavor. English seems to add more politeness, though it makes sentences wordy. Russian is direct to the point.

I find this evident when Marina and I exchange emails. Many times we have misunderstood what each was saying. I think it came down to choice of words and/or the order they were in.

Anyone know of a good rule of thumb for deciding when to use the word “were” vs “where”? I just can’t come up with a simple memory aid for those words.

 
Where relates to a place or location such as here.
Add the “w” to “here” and you get where.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/where

Where were you last night?
Asks the question of location, “where”
The word “were” refers to a state of being, “to be”.

Were is related to the verb “to be”.
Here are different tenses of the verb “to be”.
I was late.
He is late.
They were late.
We are late.

Subjunctive case:
“I wish I were a movie star.”
“I wish I was a movie star.” is incorrect.

Oh I liked that! I didn’t think of tagging ‘where’ with ‘w’ to ‘here’. I normally was just trying to relate to.. Ok this is weird but bear with me.. Noun = person, place or thing. Then I take -person, -thing = where. Sounds silly but that’s the only way I can remember some things. People have made thousands of dollars from my idea. My LD could have made me rich. LOL. I did know that ‘were’ is a verb for ‘to be’. I’ll have to make a good tag for that.

Thanks PK!

Lovely interview. I’m glad Bill O’Reilly is friendly towards you. I can only suspect you have a limited interest in politics and don’t watch Fox as a critical thinker otherwise. Don’t ever lose your love of words Marina, that is what got you here.

Back to words, here are two to digest, Faux and Noise. :)

Yes, I’m a stupid Pollack (but not very stupid) ;-)

But if the articles hadn’t been useful in the language, they wouldn’t have survived through centuries. So they must provide more than redundant information. In languages without any articles it’s compensated by more frequent use of pronouns (in translation, some usages of articles in English must be translated into certain pronouns to maintain the meaning) and the thematic-rhematic structure. In the languages with full inflection, like Polish, Czech or Russian, the word order is so-called “free”, but in fact it depends on what is the theme and the rheme of the sentence.

The issue may be not so important in speech but it’s kinda hard while writing some formal or scientific stuff and the information must be transmitted precisely.

And, like other Slavic languages, Russian is not as idiomatic as English, I mean it has more flexible word collocations. The another difficulty of English is the horrible polysemy, words like ‘get’ can have above 30 meanings depending on context – that’s rather unusual in Slavic languages, where the main meaning of every word is more unambiguous (+ there are several dozen of phrasal verbs for every “basic” verb in English, but it’s nothing unusual – we have just prefixes instead).

A small curiosity: languages like Russian or Polish has a well-developed system of subtle obscenity:
- An example from Polish: P is for Prefix.
- The most famous Russian pun based on the word хуй (= a dick, but much stronger ;-) ) It contains only the derivates of this word(!) – I’ve never seen such finesse in swearing before:

-Нахуя дохуя хуйни хуёвой нахуячили? С хуёв ли охуели? Расхуячивайте нахуй!
-Хули? Нихуя! Нехуй расхуяривать! Нахуячено нехуёво!

It means something like below (but the finesse isn’t the same):
- Why the f*ck did you “sh*tload” so much of this sh*t, d*ckheads? Unload it the f*ck away from here!
- What’s the f*cking problem?! F*ck no! No need to unload! It got loaded alright! Let’s f*cking go!

The polysemy of English words drives me nuts. Like the word Love. You can’t love your car like a woman. So depending on the content of the sentence defined the word. Now you have to add a bunch of words to explain how you plan to use the word. Which makes the language wordy. Nobody took responsibility to fix this problem and the language just keeps morphing into something else. It’s nearly impossible to learn it all. I feel sorry for people that are just learning it for a second language. Must be a nightmare for them. Now there is a new slang word I have to learn. “Sick”… One of those videos Marina had on the last lesson, the guy was using the work “Sick” quite often. It even confused me. Now I like using slang words but people keep over using slang words delusion language. In other words, if i can’t understand you, then opening your mouth was pointless! Because people using slang words often, I don’t get to learn the larger words. i.e. “idiomatic” and “polysemy” that I didn’t know until today.

With all that said, if it wasn’t for Marina, I would still be a hater of the English language. Because of Marina I found new beauty and interest in the language as it evolves. Just last night I was looking at products siting in my galley. It’s interesting how people decorate words. They change the font of a word, add colors, and even add little pictures to enhance the word. When I see students here use words I don’t know, I click on them which opens up a dictionary link. Every time that happens, I know I get to learn a new word. Not just any old new word but words that might be commonly used. I don’t like to spend time learning words that nobody uses anymore. Its to time consuming for I’m a slow learner with words. I have to tag the heck out of them.

Hey I’m part stupid Pollack too! :lol: My grandfather was part Polish. My grandfather knew a million Pollack jokes. I guess he had every right to tell them. :mrgreen:

Though, the writer did insert a few words that do change what was said. For example she added [YouTube] when clearly she did not say that. Maybe she didn’t want to mention YouTube for legal reasons. (I’m just saying that as an example if that was the case).

Here’s the way I see it. When a writer adds there little [brackets] or inserts [sic] into what I typed, I view that as an insult to my lack of grammar skills. It’s a big billboard stating, ‘Your are stupid and I am going to publicly display your grammatical mistakes to the world.”

What should have taken place is the writer should have done is gone back to the person and say, “Hey I would like to change/add these words. Then just make the changes without the damn [brackets] displaying that the writer is smarter than the interviewee. Besides, who’s place is it to say our grammar is wrong?

I will say something honestly, right out of my heart. Sorry in advance – I don’t mean to offend anybody, it’s only a report from what I thought.

The foundations of Marina’s enterprise was quite shocking for me. A girl from foreign country, with a thick Russian accent, using very good, but not 100% perfect and natural English (as was said about the articles issue) came and started teaching native-speakers about their own language issues. It was simply terrifying – ‘native speakers will lynch her’, I thought. Even the worst use of the language by native speaker is better than the most correct use by foreigner who learned it after the critical period. It will be always more or less unnatural even if grammatically perfect. ” ‘How does she, an outsider, dare to teach us about our own language’, they will be thinking, their pride forbids to listen to her talks, no doubt she will be getting bullied, they’ll kick the sh*t out of her”, I though. I was waiting for a final massacre. I would never admit that I watched her videos, if so, my friends would pour their derision upon me. Marina have succeed – it’s a story from another world, almost impossible in the reality. So she must’ve been extremely brave to violate the taboo around the language. As we’ve seen in many comments in the Internet, many people perceive her as if she was a driving instructor without her own driving license. She is standing on dangerous ground, in every second a raging mob wants to kill her and tear her remains apart.

It’s all so unusual that I don’t know what to write.

The saddest thing, she always will be treated as an outsider by many Americans and nobody can change that. She’s achieved a great success, but that’s the success streaked with an undertone of bitterness and many people’s disdain. It’s of course unfair.

Sorry for the gibberish I made above. Someone might think that I was trying to diss Marina in that two posts. It’s completely in reverse. I’m impressed by what she’s done. I was writing about hate toward her that she receives for trying to do something positive. In fact, she became a pet hate of many frustrated people in the Internet.

The second thing is a some kind of taboo around the language and excluding the whole groups of people due to matter related to language, even such minor things like an accent. So many people are ready to kill for it. It’s ridiculous if someone treats the language as a totem, not a communication device.

Doesn’t seem important to focus on hate or give much attention to haters. It’s as silly as some who complain about trolls and then go and troll for trolls. Seems to be a rather dullish and boring activity to me.

it’s time to move on

Got lust for them lips of yours Marina! Girl you turn me on.

I haven’t paid attention to the brackets till now, but now I see. It’s ridiculous, such brackets are used rather in academic articles within citations with reconstructed parts of text, but on a gossip [sic!] portal… I’ve seen something like that in such a place for the first time. And there are no brackets in other articles on the portal. It really looks like someone wanted to say to Marina: ‘You are pretending maybe to be a linguist, but you can’t even put the proper word in the proper place”. Pathetic. Especially “do YouTube” bears testimony for the mastery of editor’s language.

You’re absolutely right! Sorry.

Hello fglrx,
Before I get into my writeup, I want to clearly emphasize an incorrect notion that has been thrown around for some time by many people about Marina. Marina does NOT “teach native-speakers about their own language issues”. Marina has said this over and over again in interviews and answering comments. What Marina does is to reveal the origin of words through interesting stories. Most of these words are foreign based and have roots in Latin, Greek and many other languages, so Marina’s lessons appeal to many people throughout the world.

There is no reason for you to apologize for your great writeup. I appreciate your honest expression and point of view from that side of the world. Also, as I said to you in the Forum, your written English is near perfect, and your thoughtful logical approach to writing and choice of words indicates to me that you are bright and well educated.

First, a little bit about me. I came to the US when I was ten years old and spoke ZERO amounts English. I was not tutored until after I had been in the US for a few months and I was only tutored for a few months, but attended mostly public schools in NYC. I was a near “A+” student and excelled and won writing contests and spelling bees. I came in second in a spelling bee run-off to go to Washington D.C. and I had been in this country only three years. My first language is German, but if you knew my background, you and I might be separated by “one degree of separation”. I am a product of political circumstances, if you know what I mean.

The reason that I am mentioning my background is because I understand very clearly what you wrote and where you are coming from. Even if you have visited the US many times, you still might not understand what I am about to tell you.

I understand your fears about the terror, and there was apprehension by my parents when we came to the US. In fact, as Marina was told to change her accent, I was told to change my name to hide my identity. Marina knows that I have not changed my name. Who do you think have been my best friends? The Jewish people and I am not Jewish. I can tell you that I have never experienced any hate, animosity or fear of retaliation or jealousy. In fact, my experience has been the exact opposite. The American people are very forgiving people and are extremely embracing, understanding and very generous. In fact, I have experienced that same love in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan and other countries to which I have traveled. In fact, the reverse is probably more true (maybe not in the 2000s), where the native people of the birth of my country would crucify me more than the other way around.

Now, are there people with hate in their hearts? Of course. That exists everywhere, but in very small numbers, and of course they stay mostly hidden. On the Internet of course, that is a different matter. But, if you look at the people who have embraced Marina, you will see that your fears are unfounded. Of course, I am not speaking for Marina, and I am sure that she may have different experiences than I have had.

Also, I saw your comment to GP. No need to apologize. Your writeup was very honest and it came from a point of view that I understand and I do not hold that against you. Like I said, you and I might be closely related. :smile:

Dear fglrx,
If I may respectfully disagree with you and also know that I am not speaking for Marina. Your statement, “…she always will be treated as an outsider by many Americans and nobody can change that” is mostly not true.

How can I be so sure, as if I were speaking for Marina, which I am NOT. Because, I know many Russian people and people from other nations that have integrated into the American culture as if they were born here.

There are two reasons for this. First, the American people are extremely forgiving and generous people. They reach out to foreign people. It is only when the foreign person does not accept the free gift of embrace, that the foreign person may feel as an outsider. As you can tell by Marina’s videos, she has embraced the US as if she had been born here. She has never thrown her culture at us, but most of the fans here want her to share her culture with us. She has done that with pictures and has done two video lessons in Russian. If you look at my posts from last year, I want Marina to share her culture with me in terms of song, food, music, celebrations and so on.

Marina does NOT “teach native-speakers about their own language issues”. Marina has said this over and over again in interviews and answering comments.

Yeah, I know, I just quoted “what people said” in that post. If it comes to some topics, like politics, some people grow blind to any arguments, we know. The language appeared also such a controversial topic, although I didn’t expect that in such an extent. But it might be a very positive phenomenon – more people become interested in the language and they develop their language awareness, even if they starts from the negation and controversy.

I am a product of political circumstances, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, I guess what you mean.

I understand your fears about the terror

In that case, of course, I meant a kind of “cyberbullying” or “Internet rage” and bringing the enterprise to the ruin. The modern form of oppression. In the internet and other virtual environments the hate can be many times bigger than in the real world.

Thank you for your reply fglrx.
Yes, cyberbullying is real and and as you said can be many times bigger than the real world. This is very true and I don’t want to get into details about it. Many of that bullying comes from young kids who just don’t know any better and if they are adults, they are just ignorant. Let’s just say that Marina has many angels watching over her.

If I may respectfully disagree with you and also know that I am not speaking for Marina. Your statement, “…she always will be treated as an outsider by many Americans and nobody can change that” is mostly not true.

I think I wrote this stupid things by confusing the Internet and the television with the real world. For example, two weeks ago I was on a scientific conference in Berlin. Before that I read alot about cases of German aversion to Poles etc. so I expected many bad things e.g. being battered by German Nazi skinheads. Of course, nothing bad has happened and people, for example staff in restaurants, shops etc. have a friendly attitude towards me (and my colleagues even if they knew that we were from Poland. But I was so stuffed with negative information from the mass media that I almost took a cr*p in my pants out of fear when I crossed the German border (which is invisible due to the Schengen convention). And the rational thinking wasn’t able to overcome the stupid fear evoked by the stupid Internet and TV stuff. And that absurd feeling that if I am in a foreign country (only for a few days!) I have no right even to walk along the street, because my presence may disturb the local citizens. Of course, that’s the imaginary fear. But the mass media in my country are notoriously telling us we are worse than the people from the West.

I’m with you, Jack. I don’t want to hear what the editor has to say, I want the real deal. Occasionally an edit may be required for clarity, but if I know what the person means, then leave it alone. This is especially true when the editor is WRONG.

…and they did a good job. [And] because I use my looks in my videos…

The “and” should not be in there, unless the two sentences are combined with a comma. Marina’s original sentence was correct.

I also get frustrated when an editor goes crazy with [sic]. If it is in quotes, then I understand it is what someone else said or wrote. Yes, yes, I am very impressed that you know the proper spelling of “flatulence.” :roll:

I see that some of you are disturbed by the editor’s inline corrections of Marina’s words. I wonder how Marina feels about it?

I believe that this is the first interview of Marina where the editor has transcribed the interview verbatim and then has made the appropriate corrections as to proper English usage. I believe that most of the interviews that I have seen in the past, have been transliterations of Marina’s words, or they have taken the liberty to make the corrections without any indication that such editing took place.

I didn’t mind the corrections and it is fascinating to see what took place. I think some of you are too sensitive about the corrections. How do you think I “mastered” the English language? In NYC, people will correct you every two seconds when warranted. That’s how I learned. I appreciate people pointing out my mistakes, and I would think Marina would appreciate it also.

Take Marina’s second response on page-1.
Look at this sentence:
“… I did not find myself in the movie,
and my friend[s] taped the movie,
and they [did] a [search]…”

Notice that the editor added an [s] after the word friend in order to stay in agreement with Marina’s use of the plural pronoun “they”. I still make mistakes in agreement with my pronouns, and I have to carefully proof read my words. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don’t.

In total, the number of corrections and clarifications in the article was small, and I appreciate that format. :grin:

BOO!! :shock:

really looks like someone wanted to say to Marina: ‘You are pretending maybe to be a linguist, but you can’t even put the proper word in the proper place”.

That’s exactly what it’s saying. She was suckered into that interview. I don’t think Marina has a command of the language to be able to read between the lines like some of us are able to do.

LOL!! I seen the same thing with the addition with ‘….good job. [And] because I use…” I was always told never to start a sentence with the word ‘And’. Also one should never change someone’s quote, period.

So Americans are extremely forgiving and generous then? On top of being free, rich and brave? I wonder if most Americans are unilingual? The ‘official’ statistics say there is 300+ millions of them on earth, consuming more than 25% of the total of earth’s natural resources. Some say they are a very sexy bunch too. Heck.. You know.. The stats, the stats, they can say whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want. Nothing is freer than a statistic.

I think corrections must be applied to any interview, but the standard journalist’s procedure is to correct it, send the script to the interviewee to get the authorization and then publish. The weird thing was pointing out every correction to the final readers. :)

It is a beautiful portrait because Marina has a pretty lovely face!

:shock:

:oops:

Teacher, that was a cool article but I must take exception with one thing that the author wrote: “Pam Anderson-like appeal.” Oh, puh-leeease! Nolo Contendere, yer honor! You are exceedingly lovlier than she, and you have more class in your little toenail than she will ever have if she starts taking charm lessons immediately. You’re both blonde, can maybe wear each other’s shirts (not recommended), but after that the similarity ends like a dead-end road for her. Just sayin’. xoxo dc

My son agrees. Marina is much prettier than Pam Anderson.

After reading this exchange a second time, I want to thank you guys for being confident and cool enough to interact like this here. Observing and/or participating in discussions such as this is one of the greatest parts of being a HotFor Words devotee. I read everything, seldom say much, but I had to this time. And to you, Marina, I simply say thanks again.

Always.

As an OBJECTIVE, non-partisan critical thinker, I watch Fox News.

Whut thuh hay-ell yew gittin’ at, podnah?

Sometimes I think you’re not allowed to graduate in these States unless you put apostrophes in possessive pronouns and misuse “There,” “Their” and “They’re.” Most of the fifth grade must be “Proper usage of ‘ain’t’ in a sentence.”

(I’m an Okie so I can say this kind of stuff.)