cultural (ex)changes

Posted on July 31, 2008 - Filed Under News

g'day Boz after our last conversation i thought i would blog it 🙂 i know i like to play with words, much to the angst of people that know me 🙂 what i didnt know is that other people that spoke foreign languages also liked to do the same thing (in their own tongue)(ok i could of guessed, but hadnt thought about it) anyway after you showing me a photo in the UE challenge where a French person played with the words open closed fixed and moving ( i used Firefoxes translation thingy to help me out 🙂 ) and my remarks to the fact i didnt know other cultures played with words and your remarks about my lack of wordly understanding (or something like that) i rememberd a post in a photography forum (not the UE forum sorry) about snow in Australia. I was amazed the people did not know we do get snow in someparts in winter (not here though yippeeee)and my asking you if you knew , to which you of course replied "i knew that" 🙂

anyway this led me to search for the snowy mountains (oddly enough it is one place Australia does get snow) which then lead me to Mount Kosciuszko, Australias highest peak (2,228 metres or 7,310 ft) and then to finding out a few odd facts (or it could only happen in Australia) 1. It was spelled Mount Kosciusko until 1997, when it was corrected 2. it is pronounced Kozi-OS-ko even though it is named after General Tadeusz Kościuszko, prounounced kosh-CHOOSH-ko (we also say AL-bany not ALL-bany and Derby not Darby) 3. The 1863 picture by Eugene von Guerard hanging in the National Gallery of Australia titled "Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko" is actually from Mt Townsend even though at the time of painting it was Mt Kosciuszko, but the name was swapped with the neigbouring mountain after if was found Mt Townsend was in fact higher, this way Mt Kosciuszko is still the highest mountain in Australia (did that make sense? ) 4. however, it has now become tradition for climbers of Mt Townsend to carry rocks to the summit, in an attempt to once again make Mt Townsend the taller mountain i figure if that ever happens the names will likely swap back and Mt Kosciuszko will once again become the real Mt Kosciuszko did any of that make sense lol

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