Cows

[Eamonn 61]

On the MSN page is a photo of a cow, the caption reads something about British cattle having weird diseases -I haven''t read it yet.

It did however remind me of a while maybe not so kind story, but funny one.

Our first trip to Kandersteg was back in 1977.

We had 48 Scouts and five adults.

Many of the Scouts were from what might be called the projects over here, we said they were from the Flats (High Rise low income housing) Only about half were white, the other half were a mix of Asian and Black.

Nearly all of them had never been outside of the UK.

The Troop met outside of the tube station at Fulham Broadway Station.

Anyone who has ever been on the London Underground can imagine how hard it is to get 53 people on a train, we had to change at Earls Court to get a train to Victoria Station.

The Scouts were carrying their personal gear and each had a suitcase on wheels full of dehydrated food. I''d heard how expensive food was in Switzerland.

We of course were dressed in our Sunday best full Scouting uniforms.

When we got to Victoria Station we found the train that was going to take us to Dover and would go on the ferry to Antwerp.

Once on the boat the Scouts were free to explore or do what they liked. The adults found a cozy spot and sat guarding the mountain of dehydrated food.

I''d booked sleeping compartments for everyone so once we got back on the train, the Scouts settled down playing cards or passing the time somehow. By about midnight everyone had gone to bed and gone to sleep. We were just entering Luxembourg.

One of my greatest Scouting memories was the following morning. The Scouts woke up as the train was going through the Alps. The faces of the Scouts and the look of amazement and wonder made the hard work I''d put in all worth while.

The Scouts sat almost glued to the train windows.

Soon we seen some Swiss Cows, complete with cow bells.

One little Lad (Christian) started to try and "Talk" with the cows by making a mooing sound.

I of course corrected him telling him that only English Cows went "Moo"! And that Swiss cows spoke German!!

A little later Faisal came up to asking how you said Moo in German?

I had to smile and did let them both know that I had been pulling their leg.

This was a truly great trip and even today 30 years later the "Kids" who went still talk about it in the e-mails they send me.

I love this Scouting Stuff Too!!

Eamonn.

[Beavah 205]

Yah, Eamonn, but you''re right, eh? Cows do moo in different languages!

 

Animal Sounds

 

by Geoffrey Barto

http://gbarto.com/languages/animasounds.html

 

We''ve all heard about French and German. We''ve also seen cartoons about cats speaking dog and vice-versa. But there''s another dimension! French cats and English cats don''t talk the same way either.

 

Languages aren''t just about speaking. They''re also about hearing. When you hear something, what your mind registers depends on how your language divides up sounds. This is why it''s hard to learn to understand a new language. You may know the grammar, the syntax, the vocabulary. But the sounds are another story. The language may have sounds that to you are identical but within it are completely different. Or it may not distinguish between sounds that to you are completely separate.

 

One of the places where the differences in sound sets among languages comes through is in the way different languages represent animal sounds. Those who read the funny papers may have an inkling of this from Hagar the Horrible, in which Helga''s duck says "kvack" and Hagar''s dog says "voof" sometimes. But the authors weren''t just making up a funny joke when they started using this gag. They were revealing something that those who take language study seriously have come up against for ages.

 

If you''re an American who wants to communicate the idea of a cat to someone who doesn''t speak English, what do you say? "Meow," of course. And it will usually work. The French say, "miaule," the Italians, "miao," the Greeks "niaou," the Chinese "miao," and so on. Most languages have pretty broad agreement on what cats sound like and your American "meow" will get the point across (don''t try "mew," it''s not quite so widely acknowledged).

 

Man''s best friend, the dog, is trickier. Let''s look at what barking translates into. We know that in English there are several possiblities: "arf," "woof," "bow wow," "ruff." "Woof will probably get you the farthest. It''s kind of like the Dutch "woef," the French "vaf vaf," the Icelandic "voff" and the Norwegian "voff." "Woof" and "bow wow" seem to run together in other languages: There''s the French "ouah ouah," the German "wau wau" (also "wuff wuff"), the Italian "bau bau," the Polish "hau hau" and the Brazilian "au au." On the other hand, the Albanian "ham ham," the Arabic "haw haw" and the Chinese "wang wang" (also the Thai "hoang hoang") may seem completely... foreign... to you.

 

So if you''re studying a foreign language and you''re not sure you''re getting the pronunciation right, don''t feel bad. Even cats and dogs don''t know the right way to mewl or bark when they go overseas.

 

 

[Da Georgetown site is down, but yeh can see different languages animal noises at http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/Personal/dabbott/animal.html]

 

A German-speaking Swiss cow goes "mmuuhh" and a French-speaking Swiss cow goes "meuh".

 

Beavah

 

[epalmer84 10]

Kandersteg is a grand place. When I was in Transatlantic Council we went there for Klondike derbies and OA fellowships. I did my Ordeal there (about 12 years after my first tap out). There is a big difference between January and April- the streets are about 12 inches lower.

 

Ed

[eisely 13]

Here is a completely different cow story for you.

 

In the past we held our camporee in a large park. This park was so big and primitive that the park district actually let some ranchers keep cattle there on a grazing lease. One spring we were setting up an event on Friday afternoon that required use of a 100 foot steel measuring tape. The camporee was the next morning. The cows were curious and there were no scouts around to frighten them away. They managed to break the tape in two places by trying to eat the tape. We shooed them off and did our best to put the tape back together with masking tape, but they came back and got themselves tangled up in the steel tape again. When we shooed them off again, they took the remains of the steel tape with them. We gave up for the evening and I rushed to a hardware store to buy a new tape so we could complete the task first thing in the morning. These cows must have been suffering from a serious iron deficiency or something. Just goes to show that when you think you''ve seen just about everything, there is another surprise right around the corner.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

It was a late and black night when we pulled into the Gettysburg Group Camp site. We set up quickly and sent the youth to sleep, talked about the activities of the next day and who would watch what. Then we retired.

 

About first light, 5:30 am-6:00 am or so, we were all awaken to the rather loud MOOOS of some very close cows who did not seem happy. I scrambled out of my tent, to see our camp site backed up against a huge cow pasture and most of its occupants were clustered up against the fence between us and them. Of course, finding out we were immediately adjacent to the Eisenhower Farm, was a revelation but my first thought that we were in the path of a major stampede made me jittery all day.

[Eamonn 61]

We were spending the weekend camping just outside of Oxford.

Come Sunday morning we went to a local church.

The preacher was a real nice fellow.

When it came time for his sermon, he started by reading all the soccer scores.

A little later he came and asked me if I could lend him a hand.

A herd of cows had managed to get in the gate and were wondering around the graves.

I went with a few Scouts and shooed them back to the field.

One young Scout remarked it was the best church service he''d ever been at.

Ea.

[eisely 13]

What do cows wonder about besides graves?

[Ohio_Scouter 10]

Oh, they probably wonder about the meaning of life, or if really good cheese comes only from happy California cows, or maybe they just wonder about.

[SemperParatus 1]

E,

 

That was quite a mooving tale. It had me udderly glued to the screen. I had to reread your post at least four times to stomach what I herd you tell that boy. Certainly, you have steered him in the right direction and I would steak my life on the bet that he has fond memories of the trip as well. While I am sure you caught some beef for that comment later, it sounds like you milked it for all it was worth. Bully for you!

 

 

[Trevorum 24]

Semper buddy! We''ve missed your cheesy puns! You are truly out standing in your field. We''ve become far to hide-bound around here without you and don''t at all mind you horning in.

[ASM915 90]

Several years ago, we took a canoe trip down the river that runs through our town. We were about a mile down river when we heard one of our boys (my 20 Y/O son and ASM, he was 11 then), start yelling "BLACK BEAR, BLACK BEAR!!!"

 

Now we live in northeast Ohio, suburban/ rural, lots of farmland. On very rare occasions, we may have a Pa. mother bring the cubs to Ohio to grow up. You know, a better neighborhood and such. Sorry Eamonn. But the closest we''ve ever had one come is about 30-40 miles east of here.

 

Now the river bank was somewhat heavily vegetated. As we come around the bend, sure enough, there''s this big black snout sticking out through the thick vegetation. All you could see was the snout. As he''s yelling "Black Bear", the snout let out the loudest and longest "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" you ever heard. "BLACK ANGUS, BLACK ANGUS!!!" Needless to say, after 10 years he hasn''t lived it down yet and we all still have a good laugh over it.

 

 

Now this is the same kid , that one night while on the way to swim practice around 6:30PM (dusk out), Dave (then about the same age, maybe 10) starts yelling at my wife to turn the car around. He had spotted an Elk.

 

Now SWMBO actually listened to the kid, stops and backs the car up. She then angled the car across the road so the headlights would shine over into the field. Next thing I know, I''m receiving this excited phone call at the hospital telling me there''s an Elk down in the field at Erie and Butterbridge. Of coarse my reaction is "YEA, RIGHT. YOU ARE KIDDING?" They were dead serious.

 

That night around midnight, on my way home from the hospital, I made a detour to the intersection of all the interest. As I pull up to the side of the road with the headlights aimed out in the field, sure enough, there was the Elk, along with a few of his buddies, a Black Bear and a Big Horn Sheep. It turns out the contractor who owned the property decided to hone up on his archery skills, and had placed the life size targets around the back of his property at the far end of the field.

 

A few years later a farmer a mile down Erie did start raising some elk. Man, what a site. MAN, WHAT RACKS!!!

 

Then there was the year we had an all nighter at a barn fire. Same stretch of road. As it started to become light out, and we started winding down the pumps, all of a sudden we started hearing all this howling coming from behind us and to our left. Hear the farmer was raising wolves, several of them. What a shock. I wasn''t real happy for the wolves, all caged up and stuff.

 

You never know what you''ll find in your backyard.

Hope you all enjoy the read.

 

 

YIS

Eric

[SSScout 1616]

My TSO tells the story of going camping with her family. Seems her GSTroop leaders didn''t do much outdoorsy stuff, so her dad (my DiLaw) made it a point (he worked for the Agriculture Dept. Forestry Service) to take the family with him on his research trips when he could.

Seems they were camped in North Dakota, and one morning woke up to find their camp surrounded by Bison. DiL comes out of his tent (and he is no small person), raises himself up to his full hieght, spreads his arms out and goes "AAWWWOOUUFFF" (wife''s reporting) to the nearest Bison, which turns and gallops off, taking the rest with him/her.