Tennessee Thoughts

1. When I learned I would be moving to Tennessee, I kept having "Walking in Memphis" stuck in my head. Obviously there's a Tennessee connection, but I'm not sure why this song haunted me so when there are so many songs (including ones I'm more familiar with) about Nashville.  It happened. Though when I sang it in my head, I would replace Memphis with Nashville to be more accurate. Now I'm listening to it...good song. I'll have to go to Memphis.

2. We get approximately 20 channels (it was cheaper to get this limited package and internet than internet alone) and two of them are exclusively targeted to evangelical Christians. So many sermons, so little time. And don't even get me started on radio stations. Whenever I'm listening to the radio and find something that sounds good, it seems that the station inevitably turns into country or overly Jesus-y Christian music. Yay cultural differences. Which leads me to...

3. Language/vocabulary differences due to culture (even within a language): One of the measures we use is basically a parent report of all the common words that a child says (it also has Bates in its name--after one of its creators-- and a teddy bear on the cover of the form, so it's probably my favorite measure.) I've been entering the data for this measure, and it's funny to see how, under the clothing category, "snowsuit" is always left unchecked (i.e. child doesn't say it.) Obviously it wouldn't be functional if they did, but that's just one example of how I've been thinking that this report is as much measuring culture and environment as it is vocabulary. Another quick example: there's a whole list of places, and it's interesting to see who knows outside-related words and who doesn't. Makes me think of KD's thesis.