Adeste Fideles

[Katharine]

This year at our parish church we have had a new bilingual carol book. Everyone has been encouraged to sing Welsh or English as they preferred (although sometimes the two versions have different numbers of verses ) This reminded me of a 6s tradition in my day. The last Friday of the Autumn term, the hymn at house prayers was Adeste Fideles and all who were in the school orchestra played the music and we sang English, Latin or German as we preferred.

Did this continue? Was it just 6s?

[michael scuffil]

This year at our parish church we have had a new bilingual carol book. Everyone has been encouraged to sing Welsh or English as they preferred (although sometimes the two versions have different numbers of verses ) This reminded me of a 6s tradition in my day. The last Friday of the Autumn term, the hymn at house prayers was Adeste Fideles and all who were in the school orchestra played the music and we sang English, Latin or German as we preferred.

Did this continue? Was it just 6s?

Now that is a quite unheard-of example of liberalism at Hertford in those days! Girls being allowed to do as they prefer? Whatever next!

[midget]

And all that only 7 years after I left.

[Katharine]

Now that is a quite unheard-of example of liberalism at Hertford in those days! Girls being allowed to do as they prefer? Whatever next!

It was quite a dilemma Michael - we did not know how to think for ourselves and such a choice too. But the dilemma was limited after 4 verses (?) we returned to normality and not having a choice about anything. Remember too, it was just once a year, nothing rash like every term!

[midget]

That's a great weight off what passes for my mind- I'd hate to think of Hertford girls having to think for themselves!

[MKM]

We weren't restricted to English, Latin or German. One year I asked Chemi T (Miss Thompson) for the words in Irish. She sent to Ireland for them, which was kind of her. I fear I rather pestered her for them.

[michael scuffil]

Which reminds me, apparently there was an ancient tradition in Ireland of singing alternate verses of hymns in Irish and Latin. One of the Irish folk groups who achieved a certain fame in the 1970s (their name is on the tip of my tongue but escapes me, ir wasn't the Chieftains, and certainly not the Dubliners) had an example with a piece called "Deus meus adiuva me" (don't ask me for the Irish).
But what then is the Irish for Adeste fideles? I think we should be told.

[midget]

Don't ask, Michael. My poor daughter is trying to learn Irish to qualify for a permanent teaching job. Not to teach Irish, you understand but simply to get a job in the public sector. According to her father-in-law, you need an exam pass in Irish to be a dustman. She's surviving doing temporary special needs teaching (at 3 schools)but it is v. precarious, paryicularly as she has no real gift for foreign languages, and Irish seems to make up the rules as it goes along. I'll email her about adeste fideles, and if her answer is printable for your tender young eyes I'll post it here.
Maggie

[michael scuffil]

The group was Planxty, incidentally.

There's an Irish joke (I mean a joke current in Ireland, not one about the Irish) about the ad for a life-saver that said "Knowledge of Irish essential. Preference will be given to swimmers over non-swimmers."

I am incidentally the son of an Irishman who was born in Greystones Co. Wicklow. A sleepy seaside resort when I knew it, but apparently now a suburb of Dublin where houses cost a million euros (or a million euro, as the Irish curiously say).

[Ajarn Philip]

(or a million euro, as the Irish curiously say).

I was thinking about this quite a bit for some reason. I've been away from Europe for long enough to have rarely used the term 'euros', but I think if I was talking (rather than writing) in sterling I'd say 500 pound, rather than 500 pounds. I used the italics because I'm not quite sure. I've been sat here repeating it to myself over and over to see what sounds right. I tried dollars as well, but I'd definitely use the plural there. Thai currency is the 'baht', but that seems to be a collective noun.

Fortunately Mrs Ajarn is fast asleep...

The funny thing is that I'm quite old fashioned about the English language, so I'm a bit surprised at myself. Mind you, since I've been teaching it to Thais, I've realised what a minefield it can be.

[sejintenej]

(or a million euro, as the Irish curiously say).

I was thinking about this quite a bit for some reason. I've been away from Europe for long enough to have rarely used the term 'euros', but I think if I was talking (rather than writing) in sterling I'd say 500 pound, rather than 500 pounds. I used the italics because I'm not quite sure. I've been sat here repeating it to myself over and over to see what sounds right. I tried dollars as well, but I'd definitely use the plural there. Thai currency is the 'baht', but that seems to be a collective noun.

Fortunately Mrs Ajarn is fast asleep...

The funny thing is that I'm quite old fashioned about the English language, so I'm a bit surprised at myself. Mind you, since I've been teaching it to Thais, I've realised what a minefield it can be.

I would always pronounce the s in pounds and the s in euros when in England. However in France I don't pronounce the s in euros but I do pronounce the o (which is normal where the last letter of a word is not pronounced; work that one out!)

When I dealt it baht was both singular and plural


English a minefield? It is about the one thing which gives me nightmares when I am trying to work out how to explain English grammer to someone. For starters, when do you use the present / future tense?

I am going to the shop (= I am now this instant on my way, sometime today, when the rain stops, sometime this year, conditional). The other present tense is "I go to the shop" but that is conditional on certain other words (If, when, to .... etc preceding / following it.
OK so I think that I may have worked that one out but to explain it to a foreigner is .................

[Katharine]

English a minefield? It is about the one thing which gives me nightmares when I am trying to work out how to explain English grammar to someone. For starters, when do you use the present / future tense?

I am going to the shop (= I am now this instant on my way, sometime today, when the rain stops, sometime this year, conditional). The other present tense is "I go to the shop" but that is conditional on certain other words (If, when, to .... etc preceding / following it.
OK so I think that I may have worked that one out but to explain it to a foreigner is .................

Quite agree - I'll teach anyone Maths anywhere but English .... I was coerced into teaching a first year Secondary set in Brunei and I hated it. I remember one day going straight from them to the fifth year Additional Maths class, and one girl saw the English text book and asked me why I had it. Having explained, her pithy comment was 'What a waste!" Several of the parents wanted me to teach English, it really was a time when an Oxford degree came in useful as they had not answer to my saying that I only had an O level in English but in Maths ...