NaiGreg

I see that the stupid, stupid 'basis points' and 'percentage points' terms have made their way to Thailand. What's wrong with 1 point 5 percent (1.5%). Ridiculous jargon does nothing other than to illustrate that those using it are clowns, lacking education or vocabulary, or perhaps both, who do no more than follow the leader.

Consistency I guess.

If interest rates were previously 1.0% and they raised them by one point five percent as you say, then the final interest rate could be implied to mean 1.0015% I guess.

Saying they went up 150 basis point means it is clear to everyone.

A 1.5% increase ON 1% could NEVER be 1.0015%. NEVER! It could only ever be 2.5%. A 1.5% increase OF 1% could be 1.0015%

If they were consistent, 150 basis points would/should be 1.5 percentage points.

One point (1 pt) is generally regarded as 1%, so therefore a percentage point could be seen to be .1% and that's where the confusion comes in.

Some dumb prick in finance thought he'd invent a new term, and people thrive on cliches, the idiots do anyway. The only way there would not be confusion is to expres percentages as whole numbers and points of whole numbers.

Maybe it's just me because I hate cliches. As I said in my earlier post, cliches are indicative of those without a vocabulary, an education, or both.

The biggest fraud in thailand is the corrupt police pulling every farang they see over in the checkpoints and fining them for bogus things..

Wow. The expats that actually live here should be informed right away!

Wherever I go, my family go, there is no question about it.

A family is very easy to produce, it can be done anywhere in the world, for a very small investment.

You place too high a value on something that can be taken away from you so easily.

My wife is Thai and would not want to leave her home country.

I have no absolute right to stay in Thailand.

Face reality and learn to live with it.

You will then suffer less disappointment in the long term.

My family of 4 was only 1,299 Baht at Lotus Tesco in the post Red-shirt sell-off. Unlike the brilliant pontificator, pjclark1, I can't leave the country, now, because I am afraid I waould lose all that money. Sia daai.

I am an electrical engineer (since the days we still created circuit diagrams on blue-prints.)

1. Grounding an electric water heater of the type they here is not really important and may be a waste of time, in spite of the dire warnings you read on these threads. (Yes, I know what the safety manual says.)

2. BUT, using electric washing machine (where one actually touches the metallic inner drum after a cycle) is DEADLY without proper grounding.

Do you see the difference? In the shower you must be touching/exposed to some metal conduit AND there has to be faulty circuit. Extremely unlikely. But it is important for the unit to have at least one (preferably two) cut-outs in case of a circuit fault.

Most of the horror stories you hear about these water heaters are urban legend. In the real cases the victim grabbed/touched the metal pipe/nozzle of a unit that was incorrectly earthed. If it had not been earthed at all they would have been safer.

SO: what is YOUR guess what happened and caused the death of the 2 young Swedish tourists in/near the shower ?

LaoPo

I don't know what happened in this case. Did a pathologist confirm it was death by cardiac arrest or by wounds from electrocution?

I can tell you it was not from a "deadly" stream of water or touching the plastic casing of the water heater. Maybe some thoughtless plumber pseudo-grounded the iron drain pipe at the bottom of the shower (where water pools around the feet)and there was a circuit fault or a lightning strike.

BTW, most of the units are Japanese brands (National, Panasonic, etc.) They have pretty high standards for saftey and testing.

Remember, electric currents exist in closed circuits of reasonably low resistance! (except for static discharges: lightning, tesla coils, etc.)

I am an electrical engineer (since the days we still created circuit diagrams on blue-prints.)

1. Grounding an electric water heater of the type they here is not really important and may be a waste of time, in spite of the dire warnings you read on these threads. (Yes, I know what the safety manual says.)

2. BUT, using electric washing machine (where one actually touches the metallic inner drum after a cycle) is DEADLY without proper grounding.

Do you see the difference? In the shower you must be touching/exposed to some metal conduit AND there has to be faulty circuit. Extremely unlikely. But it is important for the unit to have at least one (preferably two) cut-outs in case of a circuit fault.

Most of the horror stories you hear about these water heaters are urban legend. In the real cases the victim grabbed/touched the metal pipe/nozzle of a unit that was incorrectly earthed. If it had not been earthed at all they would have been safer.

It's amazing how many of you go on about pronunciations but don't realise your grammar is up the pole. Take a chill pill you guys, most Indians living here would snigger at the 83,000 baht. It's what they give their kids as pocket money. So if any of the "native" English speakers/backpackers/sex tourists/geriatrics want the job, you are more than welcome to have them. Peace out!

Amen! I wonder if any of them is even literate enough to spell "hypocritical tool," what with one of them being a rather polysyllabic word.

Forgive me, but I think you might mean "I wonder if any of them ARE even literate..."

BUGGER 61 ...................you beat me to it

Actually the amateur grammar police are wrong, here.

Consider these two sentences:

"I wonder if any [one] of them IS even literate..."

"I wonder if SOME of them ARE even literate..."

No need to go back to school. We understood what you meant.

Are you sitting down?

Okay, here's the bombshell.

Were your lips moving all the while you were banging on the keyboard with this message about the melting polar ice caps? Oh, that was not mentioned?

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpgyes the caps are melting

theres a graph for the north as well and its increased

overall

Actually the area may be about the same but the ice pack is much thinner. That means less ice.

- from satellite imaging to measure ice thickness - "What they found is not good. It seems that the thick, permanent ice that used to constitute the majority of Arctic ice has been replaced by thinner, seasonal ice that melts away during the summer months. So not only is the ice covering less area than ever before, but the ice that does form is thinner than ever before. In total, the [NASA] scientists calculated that the ice pack shrank by 57 percent between 2004 and 2008, thinning by 2.2 feet."

Why get native English teachers other than from England ?

The British accents can be charming or annoying, but you will find Thailand and the rest of the developing world is moving in a direction towards American English (also known as proper English, in the 21st century) based on general preferences and the offical spellings they have adopted ('aluminium', not withstanding.) Had the Empire persisted, it might be otherwise.

Talley-Ho; All your chins up, eat your pudding, and all that ... Cheerio!

NG

Are you sitting down?

Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet – all of you.

Of course you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress – it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow, and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans, and all animal life.

I know, it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of: driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cents light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes - FOUR DAYS ONLY by that volcano in Iceland, has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud any one time - EVERY DAY.

I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in its entire YEARS on earth. Yes folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over one year – think about it.

Of course I shouldn't spoil this touchy-feely tree-hugging moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keep happening, despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.

And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.

Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you on the basis of the bogus “human-caused” climate change scenario.

Hey, isn’t it interesting how they don’t mention “Global Warming” any more, but just “Climate Change” - you know why? It’s because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.

And just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme – that whopping new tax – imposed on you, that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer. It won’t stop any volcanoes from erupting, that’s for sure.

But hey, relax, give the world a hug and have a nice day!

PS: I wonder if Iceland is buying carbon offsets?

Were your lips moving all the while you were banging on the keyboard with this message about the melting polar ice caps? Oh, that was not mentioned?

Consider the following phrase pairs that help learners distinguish tones and hone their listening skills ( hopefully these will be appearing on a You Tube video in the near future - a non-commercial education video clip)

I'm hoping the forum participants, here, can add to the list. Criteria is the word/phrase pairs must multi-syllabic and be reasonably simple to translate and useful in tone distinction drills.

นาที, หน้าที่ (minute, duty)

สีเทา, สี่เท้า (color grey, four feet)

ข้างล่าง, ข้างหลัง (below, behind)

สั่งอะไร, สั่งอะไหล่ (order something, order spare parts)

หนังเสือ, นั่งเสื่อ (tiger skin, sit on a mat)

Thanks for any contributions!

How about "พูดไทย - มือใหม่" (Speak Thai - "new hand")

In practice the มือใหม่ designation usually implies that one is "in training" as you see on so many cars that should be avoided.

This works because it is (1) short and sweet (2) it rhymes and (3) it is friendly and likely to get people to speak Thai with you.

Good Luck

NG

I think the "aa-gaat-dee" relief covers a much larger area than just the North. I was visiting friends in Bangkok this past weekend and during some afternoon outdoor activities under cloud cover I WAS COLD! I was looking around for a store to buy a hoodie. The whole place has gone mad!

Lovin' it,

NG

I have not seen the display that you are referring to but I believe it is intended as a tribute to the glory, honor and history of the BLACK MAN and you have completely misconstrued the message behind the product branding. Shame on you.

There is a competing product called WHINY-WHITE-MAN chrome polisher that some people have found offensive as well.

My wife's 40th is coming up soon and I'm hosting a party for her at a local restaurant. The last time I rented a band I got wanna-be coyote girls singing off-key. But that was a long time ago.

It seems the poignant story was not included. It is in a longer You-tube version. (I edited the original post to include the longer version which includes the post-performance dialogue)

I always wonder how many like Bell are out there suffering the same fate... Accepted but probably not accepted amongst fathers if you ask me... The final bit when she says she loves her dad after all, that's just heartbreaking.

She sings great! Him too!

Thank you for the intelligent post, Forethat. I think, now, I should have included a translation of the story she tells at the end, but you have summarized it well. Ladyboys are stigmatized. People don't realize that it took a lot of balls (pardon the pun) for her to get up and perform a national stage in this country and perform while "outing" herself at the same time. She (or he, up-to-you) gets away with it because she does have real talent.

By all accounts it is a bloke in a dress and the second voice is the one HE was born with

Sorry, I meant to post in the Thai language forum. My post is about the story behind the "freak show" but I see there are no cretin language subtitles in the video.

it was already discussed in another thread 2 days ago.

I did a search and came up empty. But I'm sure it was lost in a sea of more important threads I'm seeing recently, like:

• Does "all" Falong Mail Get Stolen"
  
• Why do expats wear shorts?"
  
• Does she really love me?
  

It seems the poignant story was not included. It is in a longer You-tube version. (I edited the original post to include the longer version which includes the post-performance dialogue)

Have you seen/heard Nawng Belle ? (น้องเบลล์ นันทิตา)

Don't let the beginning of the video bore you - she shows her real talent at about the 1:05 mark of the video. And if you understand Thai, listen to the poignant story she tells at the end.

God, I swear I love this country!

I have never seen it but admit I have not been looking closely before. Need a ream or two (don't we all)

On Halloween I pretend I live in the UK, although I have never been there. Am I subject to arrest?

Is the 5 year rule for "continuous 5 years" or aggregate 5 years.

The reason I ask is my wife lived in the US for 4+ (but not quite 5) years while we were married. I hope she can return (with a new green card) to make up the missing time

** Never mind, I just read the reply from Buckaroo.

Only hillbillies believe that "farang" is pejorative.

A more literal, or very basic translation of บารมี is "Halo" - referring to the "Aura" of dignity and self-awareness a person shows.

Even the seemingly lowest individual in Society can have บารมี in this sense of the word.

(Not meaning any offence to your wife of course - it is a compliment to be told one has บารมี ) .

Patrick

Wonderful explanation. Thanks!

NG

Are these people really your friends or are they socially superior to you?