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Path: utzoo!watmath!sunybcs!colonel
From: colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: please repeat that
Message-ID: <2674@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Dec-85 14:29:22 EST
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.2674
Posted: Fri Dec 27 14:29:22 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Dec-85 06:22:50 EST
References: <1809@uwmacc.UUCP> <2528@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <8111@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Organization: Travelers' Advisory
Lines: 22

> Also, no one *ever* obeyed the request "Moo ichido itte kudasai" ["Please say
> that again"]  Invariably, they either paused and then tried to say what they
> just said in English, or they said it in an entirely different way.  I varied
> it by sometimes asking people to repeat in the same words, or more slowly,
> etc., but no one *ever* did.  Why is this?  A friend has pointed out that
> Americans seem to do this, too (Amer.: "You turn right at the signal, then
> go straight for five blocks."  For.: "Could you repeat that, please?"
> Amer.: "Sure.  Go down to the light and turn right; go five blocks and you're
> there.").

Repeating something in the same words for mnemonic purposes is a tool of
oral-aural cultures.  The U.S. doesn't qualify!  Neither, I suspect, does
Japan.

Paraphrase is more popular in writing-cultures.  If you didn't understand
it one way, maybe you'll understand it another.  Books and Americans don't
say the same thing twice.
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel@buffalo-cs
BI: csdsicher@sunyabva