Day: 4 February 2008

“Nobody move! Everybody freeze!”

I loved growing up in Calcutta, and as youngsters we got up to all sorts of things. Much of it was in public, and much of it involved acting. Pretending. Watching reactions. And laughing. A lot of laughter.

From the simplest “pointing up at the sky” scam through to far more elaborate ruses, we enjoyed ourselves as schoolgoing teenagers. There were three rules: Don’t hurt anyone. Don’t pick on the weak. And try and keep within the law.

Watching this video, when people did something on a challenging scale, brought it all back. Also available on my VodPod. Enjoy!

[Thanks to Bruno Litman for the tweet].

The power of emphasis in language: “I didn’t say you stole my money”

I liked this:

This sentence is interesting in that if you say the sentence seven times, each time placing the emphasis on a different word, the meaning of the sentence shifts.

Try it…

  1. I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money.
  2. I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money.
  3. I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money.
  4. I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money.
  5. I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money.
  6. I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money.
  7. I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money.

My thanks to Schwern at geek2geek for the example, written about here.