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Category: Personal
If you could arrange the letters in your name to make up another name, word or phrase, what would it be?
As I was informed by someone at Uni with an anagram generator: Lickin’ Nachos. Which I have done, but no guacamole for me, thanks. Just sour cream and tomato. And NO CHEEZ WIZ! Jeez, GettyImages®, are you trying to kill me?! Answered 2016-06-04 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/If-you-could-arrange-the-letters-in-your-name-to-make-up-another-name-word-or-phrase-what-would-it-be/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
What would you do if you found US$500 in a parking lot?
Not a hypothetical for me, nor it seems for most respondents. I found AUD 300 bundled with a rubber band under my car tire, twenty years ago. I did not know then, and my wife has kindly informed me since, that the location and presentation of the $300 is consistent with a drug deal. No, […]
What do you suck at?
Ah, a soon-to-be 100+ answers question that Quora would block as a poll question, but should not because it is community building. Reflexes. When I was in high school, I went to the Victoria-wide tryouts for the student version of the Sale of the Century game show. I do believe I can find some pictorial […]
What’s it like to be mistaken for being a different ethnicity than you actually are?
*Stumbles on Quora question with 100+ answers* *Quora, instead of futzing around with UI details that already work, should be working on 100+ answer navigation* By virtue of my surname and my un-Hellenically pale skin, I got Russian in high school. Given the high intellectual caliber of Russian Jews that I socialised with in high […]
People who spent a long time out of their country, what was your biggest surprise when you came back?
Jocular answer: When I was spending three years in the wilds of Orange County, US, I was hankering for the culinary variety of Old Melbourne Town. I kept telling anyone who would listen (and that wasn’t many) about how when I’d go back, eat at my favourite Malay-Chinese restaurant on Lygon St, and swim on […]
What is your personal experience with obtaining a linguistics degree?
My story is common to that of many people who did a PhD out of hope and idealism, and got crushed by reality. This is not to discourage you to do linguistics as such, but to keep your eyes open. And read people like Rebecca Schuman at Slate. So. I was always interested in languages, […]
How did your parents decide on your name?
Boutros’ Nick, as the villagers called him: Ο Νικολής του Πούτρου. But in the papers of the state and church, he was set down as Nicholas Hadjimarcou. With a c and a dj, because the state was British Cyprus, which acknowledged that the Cypriots pronounces their j’s. The Greek alphabet doesn’t, so Νικόλαος Χατζημάρκου. Boutros’ […]
What is the coolest way to handle a man hitting on your girlfriend/wife?
So, me and the missus are on our honeymoon in Europe, and our travels take us to Florence. My wife, an Under the Tuscan Sun (book) tragic, wants to retrace her steps from the last time she was in town, through San Gimignano, Siena, Orvieto (in deepest darkest Umbria), and Cortona. Actually, Orvieto was my […]
How often do you have to write formally and with proper grammar at your current job?
I’ve switched careers from being a humanities academic to being a business analyst. Currently I’m more a data analyst with a sideline in IT architecture and policy. The clarification is important, because business analysts are more human-facing than data analysts. I switched from natively writing in Dickensian paragraphs, to natively writing in dot points. My […]
What is it like to have the same first name as your last name?
Not that big a deal, although I think it’s meant I’m not as emotionally attached to my surname as I could have been. (I’m more attached to the “Dr.” 🙂 The surname hasn’t been in the family that long anyway. The jokes I hear when I’m introduced to people get old pretty quick, so I […]