Last week, on a train heading home, I latched on to a distant conversation between a pair of Cambridge University students whiling away the miles with general chit-chat about life in and outside of their different colleges. One was on his way home to Moscow, the other a geography student going who knows where, but she thought it would probably include a two week family holiday somewhere in Italy.
After the polite chap had listened intently to the young lady rattle out a few Italian sounding place names he asked if she knew Row-des.
Nope, it seemed the geography student had never heard of Row-des.
“It’s the big Greek island”.
Ahh… That Rho-des! Gotcha, mate!
The geography student still had no idea.
Through highly experienced powers of deduction and an old fashioned CSE in geography, the answer seemed somewhat elementary. Sometimes it’s not what people say, but the way information is heard that makes the difference in correlating the details with the desired facts. Well, that’s what this wannabe writer and serial eavesdropper who went to the University of Life surmised.
“The trouble is”, said the geography student, “we don’t actually study where places are”. Obviously… I pondered, as she continued to tunnel her way past the sediment of an unfortunate miss-understanding.
“Just because we do a lot of colouring in on maps, people think we know where places are.”
Erm… Just cos I write a lot of words people think I’m writing a book, now where are me crayons?
