Monday, May 19, 2008

Because you asked...

Obviously not much (bloggable) going on in my life, so time to pander to my stalkers the masses that find me inadvertently.

"how to say aunt in croatian father's sister"

Croatians are funny critters. Funny as in "wow, how peculiar" rather than the laugh a minute variety.

Sometimes funny as in "what a great idea" - for instance, their spelling is entirely phonetic and therefore 4 year olds can read graffiti.

Sometimes funny as in "what the..." - such as the names they call each other, especially family members.

Anyhow - as I recall it depends on what branch of the tree you are as to what term of endearment you should receive.

Therefore, your aunt is "strina" if she is the wife of your father's brother, she would be "tetka" if she were the sister of your mother or father or she would be "ujna" if she were the wife of mother's brother. Uncles are "jak", "strik" or "ujak", obviously.

I had to cheat a bit to work that out, as my year of language study left me with the ability to look like I am following a conversation and nod or scowl appropriately (very handy when they are your ex-in-laws), sing one song and say "ko kokos bez glave" when I am running around in circles.

"who coined the phrase ticked off?"

I don't know.

"craotian translation mala"


small

"counting hours excel"

There is probably a better way, but I tend to use " = trunc (sum(range) / 60) " to get discrete hours, and " = (sum(range) - (hours * 60)" for the minutes.

"the acceptable age to get a bra"

I don't really know - I badgered Mum for a long time before she thought I was ready, but I (and several commentators at primary school) thought otherwise. That was 12 - although knowing now how darned uncomfortable, expensive and annoying they are I understand my mother's position.

"i am looking for something funny that happened in the past"

Aren't we all...

Hopefully you will ALL find it next post - in the interim, thank you for your great comments on the last post and I love yous all.

6 comments:

Lin said...

lol with the Croations' linguistic obsessiveness with the exact details of family relationships. And ahh, phonetic language: very handy indeed.

Thanks for the excel tip.

And bras: I wore one of my sisters' hand me downs that was only there for show for years.

Alison said...

Jeanie, you crack me up!
Love your interim posts... Almost as much as the belly button fluff ;)

Maude Lynn said...

"Something funny that happened in the past" has got to be the vaguest search ever!

Debby said...

Jees-oy! Inlaws speak in a different tongue without them speaking a foreign language too....

Jayne said...

LOL That is great, Jeanie ;)

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

LOL - I have been googled on some funny things but keep forgetting to post them.