Re: How to sound like a scholar in English by learning Spanish

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> On 2007-09-07 19:27:58 +0200, Frances Kemmish <fkemmish@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> said:
> 
>> [ ... ]
> 
> 
>> As it happens, on Wednesday evening I was at a reception in New York 
>> for alumni of the University of Birmingham. One of the guests of 
>> honour was Paul Nurse, who was a student at the same time that I was 
>> (although I never met him then). He mentioned the matriculation 
>> requirements of the time, which included a pass at O-Level in a 
>> foreign language. He failed the exam six times, but the head of the 
>> department to which he'd applied went to the University Senate, and 
>> got a special dispensation for him to matriculate without that 
>> requirement, so long as he took language cl***** in the French 
>> department during his first year as an undergraduate.
>>
> Interesting. I hadn't reaized (or I had completely forgotten) that Paul 
> Nurse graduated from Birmingham in biochemistry. If he had graduated a 
> year later or if I had arrived there as a lecturer a year earlier I'd be

> able to claim to have taught a winner of the Nobel Prize, but we just 
> missed overlapping: he graduated in July 1970 and I started in October 
> 1970. Pity.
> 

I am waiting for another discussion of unusual names so that I can 
mention Doctor Nurse.

Fran