Networking - Natalie

[jack]

OK, I know most people don't care about my sorting entries into types, but it still amuses me. Hmm, I should probably put the categorization in mood instead. Anyway, I decdied "stupid coincidences showing cambridge is too small" should have its own category. Soon maybe "stupid coincidences in the carlton" will, and meeting someone who wrote a program I use doesn't count unless it's obscure :)

D: I don't think you've met my other half.
Me: Wait...
???: You do look familiar.
Me: Did you used to dance?
???: Yes.
Me: Did you used to have long hair?
???: Yes.
Me: Natalie?
???: Yes! Jack? How are you, it's been so long.
Me: In the dining room with the dagger?¹

Apparently I even met them together about two years ago, and forgot all about it till (gr?)² now.

Other coincidences include meeting my best friend in London with no prior arrangement; another friend meeting half of his coursemates on a field trip in london, with no prior arrangement; forwarding an email forward from mum to a mailing list, and having someone respond "I know who started that"; and stumbling into a school friend's ex in a Newnham corridor.

What are your favorite stories?

[1] Punchline altered to protect the conversation from being too boring. No girlfriends were harmed in the creation of this post.
[2] I adopt the convention of (sp?) representing an unknown spelling I can't check easily, and (gr?) an unknown point of grammar :)

Comments

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Noooooooooo! It should be 'til, and I don't care if people say till is right because I'm never going to believe it! I can't think of any other etymology than a contraction of until, so till (while conventionalised, and I don't know if it's in dictionaries) so has to be wrong. Indeed, it's the only bad thing about the film From Dusk Till Dawn.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's in dictionaries

It's in the OED. The first usage in the sense of "up to the time of (an event)" was eight hundred and fifty years ago, marginally predating 'until'.

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50252760?query_type=word&queryword=till&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=KlGI-iR9nMh-4457&result_place=3 Unfortunately, you won't be able to read the link until you're back at college, pay for a subscription, or set up an http tunnel.

Unfortunately, I'm not very good at reading complicated dictionary entries, so I'm not sure when they're synonymous and when not, and have probably misrepresented it a bit. But it's good for getting a discussion going :)

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Seriously? Hmm... must research etymology...

Knew I was setting myself up for a fall by saying what I did :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Knew I was setting myself up for a fall by saying what I did :)

Me too. But then no-one thinks I can spell anyway¹ :)

I don't know the etymology for certain. OTOH I wasn't just making all that up². For instance, 'till' might be archaic, in which case "'til" would make more sense. Or I should use "'til" in formal situations, because it avoids an argument when I can't defend myself.

[1] A-N-Y-W-A-Y
[2] I didn't make it up. I read it on the internet somewhere.

[the-aviator.livejournal.com]

The world isn't terribly small per se, but the subset of interesting people like us within it is quite cliquey ;)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

True. Rosy's explanation is that there's only a few thousand real people in the world, and a lot of 'crowd' that looks like people but isn't truly sentient. So when you *meet* someone, it's quite likely they know other real people.

When I met Natalie I thought she was very nice, but not having met her since thought I must have been mnistaken in assuming she was real, until now :)