after a ridiculous idea by Martin Rundkvist)
- My older kid is in engineering school and my younger kid is shopping around for engineering schools. ❤
- Does Duolingo have a course in the Neutral Good Alignment Language?
- Sudden realisation: many of my favourite books were written by people much younger than I am now. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by 35-y-o Douglas Adams, The Dispossessed by 45-y-o Ursula LeGuin, Hyperion by 41-y-o Dan Simmons, Barrayar by 42-y-o Lois McMaster Bujold, Cat’s Cradle by 41-y-o Kurt Vonnegut…
- In fiction people sometimes express mild surprise with an “Eh?”. I have no idea how this is pronounced and I can’t recall ever hearing anything similar. (People tell me Canadians will actually say [ei].)
- Since growing up, I have never picked desultorily at my food.
- Pleasantly surprising insight: I need to ask experts for advice on fieldwork near a Medieval blast furnace site, heavy proto-industrial stuff, and almost everyone I can think of is a woman.
- Take it from me, kids. It is NOT A GOOD SIGN if, when you order jambalaya at an alleged Cajun place, the guy asks you if you want it with rice or French fries.
Aardvarchaeology - by Dr. Martin Rundkvist 
In Japanese, “ee”, pronounced with a rising intonation and an abrupt stop, is the canonical way to express “what?!”, “really?”, “you don’t say?” and so on. I assume “eh” will work just fine with the same pronunciation and meaning.
As an aside, Swedish “koja” is a small scabin. In Japanese “小屋” (“koya”) is a small cabin, pronounced exactly the same. Another victory for the law of large numbers.
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koya = コヤ a hut or cabin
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“People tell me Canadians will actually say [ei]” – Absolutely true, but pronounced with a level or falling tone, which serves to sort of seek affirmation of what the speaker has said.
For other English speakers “Eh?” as an expression of surprise is pronounced the same way, as [ei], but with a rising tone.
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“Ei” is Finnish for “no”.
And you must have explained to your kids the employment opportunities in archeology.
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