Proof that, indeed, I AM working in Thailand (and NOT just travelling around all the time!) doing science-y things!
LT^3BMD VIII -
Even within a few hours of working in a Thai lab, you start hearing a few funny English-Thai words, and can't help but chuckle.
"DichloromeTane" = Dichloromethane --> since, in Thai, all words spelled with "th" are pronounced with a hard T.
"Wacuum" = Vacuum
"Sigh-ringe" = Syringe --> Ok, this would be confusing to me, too, since the "y" isn't really pronounced the long "y" way!
There's one thing, in particular, that I let my graduate student say several times, but I finally corrected her this week (of course, the last week that I'm working in lab!) :
When using a UV-Vis machine to observe the absorbance spectra of my compound, she'd tell me to first,
"OPEN the computer!"
Then, when leaving the room after using the machine, she'd ask me to:
"CLOSE the power!"
First off. I know that we chemists can get around puzzles to synthesize various compounds and (basically, ahha!) do anything, but I don't exactly think that I have the capabilities of OPENING a computer.
Second off, power is not a physically tangible thing to me... so HOW do I CLOSE it?!?
So, what I finally told my graduate student was that, when it comes to energy/electricity, or something that you can't physically open/close, you use the words "ON" and "OFF." To make it easier for her to distinguish and remember this, I told her that if there's a switch involved, use "ON/OFF," but if you're actually physically opening and closing something, use "OPEN/CLOSE."
Apparently, in Thailand, everything (including electrical items) are described as being OPENED/CLOSED, so Thai people translate this directly into English, expecting it to be completely understood by English speakers!
Interesting, eh, that they have only one word to describe changing the activity/inactivity of an object?
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