Hi,
Some years ago using the word bizarre to describe something would have raised eyebrows because either people didn’t know what it meant or if they did, they were surprised that you knew how to use it. Now it’s broken out like a rash in the UK. A day doesn’t go past without bizarre this and bizarre that cropping up all over the place. Funny how words are like a fashion accessory - here today and gone tomorrow. Bizarre or what?
Alan
In the US, bizarre came into frequent use at the time of the hippies in the late 1960s, I think. It’s been a very common word here ever since.
Hi trendsetters,
Alan, i think you ought to involve the word “bizarre” into your range of language as a common word. I?m going to prepare my own dictionary for that. I only wonder when it is going to appear in Germany. Or did it already? I?ll keep my ears open next time.
greetings
Michael
According to dict.leo.org, you already have the word bizarr in German. I know I’ve heard it a few times. This word came into both languages many, many years ago. It’s been in English since the mid-17th century.
I’ve never heard it used in German (again, it doesn’t mean much). In Spanish (bizarro) it has different meanings: intrepid, audacious, arrogant, among others, but it is not common at all. In French, however, it is used very frequently and has the same sense as in English, i.e. very strange. The word is said to derive either from the Basque bizarr (beard) or the Italian bizarro.
Hi Jamie!
Yes, you?re right if you write that there is a German word “bizarr”. So it?s not a word that had to be new created or imported. My understanding of “bizarr” is that it discribes things or situations which you cannot compare to normal criteria.
I lift up my hut (like Germans say) that you have taken the labour and looked especially into dict.leo.org. But I have understood Alan in that way that he meant people use the word “bizarre” like “cool” or “geil” as a fashion word. And to be honest I?ve understood your post the same way.
And please let me explain with this post, i like your critic as well as every else other that will come. I also like hilarious discussions and i won?t say no to impressions from abroad.
Let us all get brothers and sisters in spite of any differences so that there won?t ever be a war. Let us take our power to more important problems we have in the world.
greetings
Michael
Hi, interesting dicussion. I remember there was that song my Harpo - Movie Star in which the word bizarre appears:
You feel like Steve McQueen
when you’re driving in your car
and you think you look like James Bond
when you’re smoking your cigar
it’s so bizarre you think you are
a new kind of James Dean
but the only thing I’ve ever seen of you
was a commercial spot on the screen
Michael, thanks for joining our community. You have brought up an interesting point - the connection between language and the situation in the world. We could discuss the question as to what extend language influences world politics or how words can change the way a person thinks.
What is your opinion on this?
Regards
Torsten
PS: Yes, the word bizarr(e) exists in the German language but in the area where I live many people might pronounce it the same way like ‘pizza’ which could cause a lot of confusion so they’d rather avoid it ;-).[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: When are you going to submit your cost estimates?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi conchita! Hi Torsten!
Nice to meet you here. Sorry for the late answer. In the afternoon i worked with my horse and later in the evening my wife and i went to a party.
Conchita, i think you found the best short description for the word bizarr(e)(o) with very strange. Please could you explain the meaning of “i.e.” to me?
Torsten, i believe the refrain is : Movie star…movie star, you think you are a movie staaaar. A very nice song that had been famous when i was 12 or 13 years old! And not you have to thank me, i have to thank you for this wonderful site. It might be easy to jump onto a running train, harder is to create it and to keep it on the run.
Sorry, it?s half past two in the morning and i?m really tired now. I would enjoy to meet you later again.
greetings
Michael
Hi Michael,
Your analogy with the train is very good, getting a train is always harder than keeping it running. I guess the same holds true for any activity that requires regular input. What about your hobbyhorse (that’s supposed to be a pun 
- how and when did you start it?
Enjoy your Sunday.
Regards
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: Didn’t you use to work in sales?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hello Michael!
Nice to meet you, too. You seem to have become a regular here. Great!
The abbreviation ‘i.e.’ comes from the Latin expression ‘id est’ and means ‘that is (to say)’, ‘in other words’. It is used to give an explanation of what has just been written. I don’t know if it’s as common in another language as it is in English.
Hi Torsten!
Have you got up yet! You seem to be a nightfighter!
Regarding the analogy with the train: “Mostly hard it must be if you use “to get” in getting a train like you do in getting a cold” :roll:
About the hobbyhorse: it?s really a hobby only, i?m not a profi! Eight years ago shortly after we have got able to rent a house in the country of the M?nsterland some friends of my wife infected us with this virus. That is like to be gotten by a train 
Either you step away from the railway or the train catches you. Now, we hadn?t been fast enough! So we we have a lot of work and salery with them, but it is a very good feeling when you have worked with your horse and the horse follows you after work satisfied and relaxed without been binded! That is what the Red Indian Ga-Wa-Ni Ponyboy means in his book “Horse, follow closely”.
And it is like the English language, you will never come to an end.
Since i ?m infected i have experienced so much things and situations that i would be able to write a book about the bizarre ones only. By the way, perhaps a comic like Broesel?s “Werner or what” or “MAD” might be successful at a group of insiders 
But now i have gossipped enough! Perhaps you can tell me what bizzare situations or things you have experienced?
greetings
Michael
Hi Michael, thank you for sharing your stories with us, I’m sure other community members will relate their experiences too. In the meantime, could you please tell us how much time you spend with your horse? I suppose you keep her close by your house? What has changed for you since January 2006? You mentioned that you are a mechanical technician who worked as a constructor. I could imagine that you will be able to find a new job if you use all your potential. What do you think?
Regards
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: Which vendor do we use for break-room supplies?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten!
Regarding the first sentence in your latest reply: because you ask me i hope you don?t think about me as a babbler! In this sense i thank you for requesting me! It helped me a lot at increasing my range of English.
But now i?ll go to answer your questions. You asked me a lot. :?
About my horse i?ll give you only short answers because in this reply i would prefer to write about my jobsearch.
The horse stands close to our house. So i have to do plenty of jobs around the horse and it takes me some time to carry through them daily. All in all, including the work with the horse, you can imagine that it takes nearly one and a half to two hours a day (minimum). :shock:
What about the jobsearch? It isn?t as easy as many people think! In opposition to earlier times there are 5 milions of unemployed people in Germany but not approximately so much jobs. That turns us into a bizarre situation:
Many of the employers are looking for an employee who matches exactly to the vacancy! But when anybody is beginning a new job he must get trained up on the new demands more or less everytime. For that mostly the employers won?t or cann?t spend time or money. So it seems like they are looking for a needle in a hayrick.
For me it means that i have to be that needle. So i have to look for jobofferings that match on my experiences nearly exact. That reduces the pool of jobofferings enormous but there are some kept left. Due to each of them i write an application, some of them i added one in English. :roll: I?m in connection with personal sharing firms and job dealing agencys too but how i told, it isn?t easy to find a new job nowadays.
There are so many demands which must match: for example to be approved in a special CAD-applikation out of a pool of i don?t know how much there are, or to be approved in English, often the age does matter and so on.
From a big row of applications i have had four interviews.
-at the first my days feeling was not well so i failed
-after two other interviews i have got the job but the firms didn?t know when they will need a new collaborator (not until now yet)
-actually i have had an interview last wednesday at an engineering office. It lasted about one and a half hour and had been very interesting. But i have been only one of four appliers, exactly the second. They promised to contact me this week on the phone and to share their decision to me.
I?m very excited to the reactions of some other applications which are not answered till now, parts of them are about 2 month old.
And now i?ll go on looking onto the jobb?rse of the workagency!
Please let me know if you have some ideas what i could be doing better! What do you think? Should i better not have applied in English?
Thanks for giving the chance to write about this trouble!
Michael
P.S.: Conchita, i forgot to thank you for your explanation regarding i.e. :oops: I do that with this reply and hope you read this!
Hi Michael,
Thanks again for taking the time to share your situation with us. When you write down your ideas, your thinking becomes clearer and you allow others to put themselves into your shoes. As you said, the official number of unemployed people in Germany is around 5 million and if more of them started to exchange their experiences we could create additional jobs.
So, you are actively engaged in the job hunting process and there are a few things in the pipeline. In addition to your current job applications we can start our own little training course. The purpose is to come up with possible solutions for your situation. As you said, although the unemployment rate might be high, there is a job out there that fits exactly our profile. The challenge is to find that job - or even better: to change your thinking process in such a way that actually will trigger the job ‘to find you’.
Let’s take a look at what we need. First, it might a good idea for you to tell us what exactly you are missing in your current situation or rather: what exactly do you want? This might sound silly but it’s not. Take some time to find out what you really want. Why are you writing all those applications? Why do you want a new job? Again, you might think that the answer to that question should obviously be ‘because I have to earn a living’.
However, you probably have other reasons too. So, please share them with us and I’ll tell you what the next step in our job hunting training program is.
Regards
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: How soon can you finish taking inventory?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten!
Sorry Torsten, but i think this is the moment to have a short cut. Like i wrote, i loved your provocations and in the sense to improve my range of English i accepted and answered to your questions and requests but now i reached my limits for the moment. Far away from the imagination that anybody would follow this topic i have the feeling to become inquisited. You ?ve never been ready to tell me or us which bizarre story you?ve experienced and now you change the headline of this topic?
Sorry again, i?m in the age of 47 and yes, i asked you for an idea how to make my jobsearch more effectiv but i didn?t calculate that you could try to give me lessons in how to life. And i?m not ready to hear advices from people who are as strange ( i?m sorry to say bizarre…remembering Conchitas explanation) as you are at this moment to me.
Yes, i think it might be an interesting theme for a new topic if people from Germany would be involved. I also think that people from other countrys will have different problems.
Thank you, in spite of this latest reply from me, it was nice till this moment and i would like to discuss with you again!
greetings
Michael
Hi Michael, I respect your desicion, you are perfectly free to talk about any topic. I was not my intention to ‘teach’ how to live and I’m sorry for coming across this way.
As far as strange people are concerned, you are certainly right but then again it might all depend on how you define normal. Yes, I’m aware that the initial subject of this thread was the use of the word bizarre and we went off in a different direction which in my opinion is perfectly fine because this is what happens in real life situations too.
Regards
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: Wouldn’t you rather telecommute?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten!
Yes, you?re right. Everything can happen, that?s life!! Your intention was?nt to teach me how to live and to offend you wasn?t mine. Please let me give a short explanation to you about what happend to me here:
Entering this site and joining to your memberlist i intended to learn English. My imagination had been that i write anything and there is anybody having a big textmarker who marks the mistakes that i have made and shakes his wisely head. I really have been waiting for that. Instead of that you requested me and took me to a break even point where i have to correct my imagination. After having a cap of sleep i perceived this and must recognize that your requestions took me to a higher level in range of language.
If you are able to accept this excuse i ?ll be ready to go on with our exchange!
Regards (Is this the better word?)
Michael
Hi Michael,
I think I have an idea of what your expectations were when you found our site. You wanted somebody to amend your sentences and that’s quite reasonable. You are capable of expression your thoughts in English and when you communicate with our team you can improve your skills because learning a language is a bit like playing tennis - you hit the ball, it comes back and you hit again. So, instead of ‘correcting’ your English we have just been using the language to exchange ideas. Maybe we can leave the job hunting topic for a while and come back to it at a later point. In the meantime we can talk about anything you want.
Cheers,
Torsten
PS: You can close your message with ‘best regards’, ‘kind regards’, ‘regards’, ‘talk to you soon’, ‘bye’ etc. - what’s best really depends a number of things.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: How much interest does First Bank pay?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten!
You compared learning English with a tennis match and i think it?s a good comparision. Absolutely certain are you the more experienced player. Although you don?t want to make the point, i think, it is my duty to hold the ball in the game.
So let me explain that i?m perfectly ready to go on with our job finding course despite the sudden interrupt i made. Like in a real tennis match, after a big point, the match must develop again slowly. So i try to reopen the match:
Your ideas are interesting. The first reason why i?m looking for a job is to earn a life, of course. Wondering which else reason might be there i ?m used to say it is the one and the only. I?ve never felt a holy call or anything else, otherwise i might have got a doctor, a psychololgist, social worker, priest or perhaps a teacher? So i am what i am: a mechanical technician with good proficiency in steel construction and some in mechanical construction. Not to be missunderstood: this is not an occupational call but i like it.
This is my reopen the game.I?m sorry to say that i must warm up again.
Regards
Michael
P.s.: Are you really a European? I am not Dr.Proctor and you?re not needed to answer!
Hi Michael,
To start with your last question, yes I consider myself a European. As with any other social and economic development there are pros and cons to the entire EU concept. I focus on the advantages a unified Europe is bringing about. For example, I’m now free to travel to all the EU countries and I’m even allowed to work there. Learning English or any other language makes sense only if you can apply our knowledge so I’m glad I can hop on a plane and go to the UK or Ireland any time. That’s why I say I’m from Europe and from Germany.
What do you think about this issue? Of course we can also return to the job hunting question if you like.
Regards
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: Whose old office will Dena move into?[YSaerTTEW443543]