This Halloween, the National Center for Giant Bat Activity are warning about a first-ever sighting of Transylvanian Giant Carpet Bats. A spokesperson for the Center said “I’ve been working here for 20 years and not one giant bat. I mean, ever. The grant money was running thin and frankly I started to think I was wasting my life. And then boom, giant bats. Go figure.”
Via Reddit.
awwlookitthatface!!!!!
I think all bats are cute. Even the ones that look suspiciously like dogs.
(Not that I am accusing the National Center for Giant Bat Activity of falsifying their research or anything like that…)
(I mean, I’m sure the timing of this sudden first sighting and the imminent running-out of their grant money is just a conicidence…)
Web-handed flying mammals of unusual size? I don’t think they exist.
*giant bat that is clearly a man in a bat costume jumps on wuyizidi*
*after much struggle and unmasking of said ‘bat’* “It’s Old Man Jenkins – the Director of National Center for Giant Bat Activity!”
Inconceivable!
(Although I think we went from the Princess Bride to Scooby Doo…so, Those Darn Kids!)
It’s a special crossover episode merging the Princess Bride and Hanna Barbera Universes 🙂 Sort of like those episodes featuring Sandy Duncan or Harlem Globetrotters.
😀
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
BatDog!
“…and I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”
Oh, you kids. (from another generation)
bah .. I want to lick your face ..
Dead by slober .. hmm .. not to bad of a way to go
Really want to bop that bat nose.
Mike, you’re killing me! My #1 pet peeve in ESL is when students who have the V sound in their language insist on pronouncing Vs in English as Ws. No native English speaker does that. They sound like they’ve got a mouthful of Novocaine! “Awailabubble”
I never realized that was a choice – thought it was similar to Japanese having difficulty with an “L” and “R” sounds. I felt so bad – one time when I was working at an art supply store in San Francisco a Japanese fellow had to ask me for a “ruler” – it didn’t go well.
hahahahaha! But seriously, my students evidently think that “it sounds more exotic” when you exchange the W for the V. I heard once an awesome interview with Lindsey Vonn on Austrian radio , and the announcer said “Lindsey, we have 30 more seconds, is there anything you want to tell our listeners?” and bless her heart, she said “yes, as a matter of fact. My name is Lindsey *V*ONN, not *W*ONN.” And my students, they often say they like “wedgies”. When I tell them what a “wedgie” is, they decide that maybe they don’t like their underwear pulled up over their ears…
I find that interesting that someone learning to speak English would choose to try to speak it with a foreign accent. I wish I could ask them for specifics on why they would make that choice.
I don’t think their intention is to speak English with a foreign accent. These students simply think it sounds “more English” that way, even if in reality it does not.
I wish I could choose an accent for myself, from tomorrow on I would speak like Bill Steer or Benedict Cumberbatch 🙂 Unfortunately my pronunciation will always bear the mark of my native language, as soon as I start speaking all you native speakers can hear that I am just a poor language learner. It does not sound like someone from any part of the English speaking world no matter how much I would like to believe it.
Most of us in the states don’t even speak a second language! You should never feel bad about your accent – I find an accent charming and, frankly, amazing, since I don’t have a second. I love French but only have high school version. What is your native language, Ems?
It is Hungarian.
?
But Ems, I bet there are a lot of people who say “I love the way you speak English” or “I love your accent. Where are you from?” Aren’t there?
Yes, there are. Interestingly enough the most common guess is Finland 🙂
but that makes sense, since Finnish and Hungarian are closely related! I like how Hungarians speak – they actually enunciate!
yes, that’s wery frequent 🙂
I offer my mother’s observation, peer pressure. She was an ESL teacher in southern California at a high school that had a large and various population of immigrant students including: Latino, Armenian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Russian. She always said that her first year students spoke “perfectly good american english” until a longer holiday. Then they all came back pronouncing words as their peer group would pronounce them. Go figure.
By the way – my Danish host family did the same thing with Vs and the Ws. When speaking English they called them the Wykings (Vikings) which makes absolutely no sense because in Danish they are Vikinger, pronounced vee-king-er.
Tara, it certainly doesn’t help that the media in Austria confuse Vs and Ws. And that most English teachers don’t correct this abomination in pronunciation. But it does frequently make me laugh… one I heard a Johnny Cash impersonator who sang “she walks these hills in a long black WHALE”… I collapsed in giggles.
?
For a while I had two coworkers from very different parts of India. Their accents sounded very similar, except one pronounced Vs as Ws and the other pronounced Ws as Vs. We work with tons of software with similar acronyms, all managing business processes with alphanumeric budget item codes and the like. Add in coworkers from Pakistan, Vietnam, Turkey, Korea, and Texas and the results are often comical.
Thank God for the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Yay! I teach my students the NATO alphabet too!
I’m in IT and I use the NATO alphabet all the times when giving serial number over the phone.
I spent 15 years at an importer and I loved all the accents – mostly we worked with folks in Turkey and Brazil, but also India, Pakistan, Germany, Belgium, etc. Even our colleagues in Montreal – I can still recall the lilting way the receptionist answered the phone in French.
(adding) – Oh, BFB, and Texas! We had a Turkish rep named Imam, and the Texan called him “that I-Mom feller” 😀
Enjoying this line!
Ahh! The memories!
I remember a friendly exchange student from China. We were discussing ordering soup.
Slowly
Sssss-ewww-pa-
Could be done slowly, but when fast we would all dissolve into giggles.
-Shoupah-
He was a wonderful person!
Another ESL friend from college who came in incredibly excited saying, “I dreamt in english last night!”
So delightful!
I’ve a huge silly grin all these years later from the memories!
Thanks everyone!
Yup. That thar is one of them thar giant batses. Gotta love em.
I loves bats. Bats are good. Bats eat bugs. Bats are good. Even giant ones who eat kibble.
29 comments. Yup. I knew there’d been a serious veer off piste involved. 😉
Anyway, I love that dog. I mean bat. Giant bat. Definitely. Especially the paws. LOVE!
Go off on a tangent? Us??
SOH CAH TOA?
Nope . Cosine only *Snickers* .. Maybe we are “square” rooted in our believes of cuteness