What do you mean, you can't....

[Chuffy]

I can go a pogo stick no hands

Heh, I bet you can love, I bet you can....

I can't draw to save my life.
I'm hopeless with birthdays and after 40 years I still get my dad's wrong.
I can't sing.
If someone starts to explain spatial stuff, like building plans, my brain shuts down and I want to cry. I find it very, very hard to picture things from other people's descriptions.

 

[Aperitif]

I'm terrible with people's names, but I have an absurdly good memory for postcodes

I know just what you mean FN4 4R...a first class memory!

 

[Arch]

I can turn my hand to most things, indoors and out, from putting up shelves, laying flooring to building steps and laying paths. As well as all the supposedly girly things like cooking, baking etc. My philosophy is to have a go and if I fail, then I can always pay to for someone to do it. I think most folk use the excuse that they can't do it when they are too lazy to even try.

Well, that's probably true. But you see people on TV (and I realise, people are picked to be on TV for entertainment, so they are bound to be extreme), making a terrible hash of the simplest dish, with acres of mess created at the same time.

The pronounciation thing niggles at me. I understand that there are sounds that aren't used in English, and that those are more difficult to acquire in later life when your voicebox has 'set'. But it's when people can't repeat words that are seemingly simple, but just 'new' to them. I had a boyfriend who was like that. I introduced him to the concept of profiteroles* and he just couldn't get it right. Profit-er-roles, how hard is that? It's even said more or less as it's spelt. I wonder if it's the same laziness - it looks odd and difficult, so don't try.

*It wasn't a great relationship, but we ate out a lot.

 

[summerdays]

Map reading/instinctively knowing which way to go is so easy - (Mr Summerdays is absolutely appalling at it), cooking isn't a problem either. But keeping the house tidy, being organised and knowing how to spell are all very very hard - and I doubt will ever be mastered.

 

[Arch]

I can't draw to save my life.

I can draw some things, but not others - I can do a dainty botanical watercolour, but not a landscape (well not well). I can see a picture in my head, in perfect detail, but not produce it.

 

[Lazy-Commuter]

This one won't be unusual on the forum, but seems to be in the population at large ..

I can ride seven miles to and from work each day. And that seems like a miraculous talent to most people I know!!

 

[Wheeledweenie]

With singing I honestly believe it's all about teaching people when they're young. I teach small children basic music skills and even the most persistent groaners leave with a semblance of pitch once I've had them. Bad music teachers who tell children they're tone deaf have a lot to answer for, the proportion of people who are truly tone deaf is miniscule. You're unlikely to ever meet them.

 

[Arch]

With singing I honestly believe it's all about teaching people when they're young. I teach small children basic music skills and even the most persistent groaners leave with a semblance of pitch once I've had them. Bad music teachers who tell children they're tone deaf have a lot to answer for, the proportion of people who are truly tone deaf is miniscule. You're unlikely to ever meet them.

I guess that's on a similar vein to the pronounciation thing - small children pick up languages better too, don't they. I suppose children are just huge mental sponges, and once you get to be an adult, your brain switches to getting on with life...

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I can't fill a form in.

Some kind of brain shutdown happens, I can even put my surname in the Christian name bit and after that it just goes downhill....

 

[Wheeledweenie]

I guess that's on a similar vein to the pronounciation thing - small children pick up languages better too, don't they. I suppose children are just huge mental sponges, and once you get to be an adult, your brain switches to getting on with life...

Indeed, I do tend to call my kids my little spongiform beings.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I don't understand how people can't pronounce the word 'Croissant'.
It's not 'crossn't' - it's the first part of the noise a duck makes, a SSS sound, the word On and a T on the end. Qua sss on t. Simples!!!

Went to Mozzer the other day and the girl in there called them crossy-ants. I didn't know whether I should have corrected here or not.

 

[Wheeledweenie]

Went to Mozzer the other day and the girl in there called them crossy-ants. I didn't know whether I should have corrected here or not.

An ex-school mate of my sister's had a baby and told my sister she was called [phonetically] 'Dull-see'. My sister said it was lovely but why had she chosen such an old-fashioned name. The girl replied it's not old, you know 'Dullsee and Gabbanna'.

 

[marinyork]

With singing I honestly believe it's all about teaching people when they're young. I teach small children basic music skills and even the most persistent groaners leave with a semblance of pitch once I've had them. Bad music teachers who tell children they're tone deaf have a lot to answer for, the proportion of people who are truly tone deaf is miniscule. You're unlikely to ever meet them.

I find this quite interesting. I thought amusia was supposed to be in about 1% of the population. How would you ever know you've met one ?

 

[Chuffy]

I don't understand how people can't pronounce the word 'Croissant'.
It's not 'crossn't' - it's the first part of the noise a duck makes, a SSS sound, the word On and a T on the end. Qua sss on t. Simples!!!

Remind me Doc, what's the capital of France?

 

[PaulB]

I can ride seven miles to and from work each day.

FREAK! Look at the freak, ladies and gentlemen!

FREAKKKK!!!!