Monday 25 April 2011

Auditory Alterations

I was on my way back from a walk when I was accosted by the nine-year-old who lives across the road. She wanted to show me the medal she'd won at her Saturday morning gymnastics. I stopped to admire it properly and, as I did so, I pressed the button on my cassette player, to rewind the tape I'd been listening to. 'What's that noise?' she asked.

She'd never heard a tape being rewound. Indeed, she'd never had anything to do with cassettes at all. Very few people do have anything to do with them nowadays. I say that without regret - they are dratted things, although they are the only medium I have for listening to the 'US Foreign Service Institute, Basic Hungarian Course, Part Two', which I bought on E-Bay and, I am hoping, is going to be the thing that at last helps me to make the breakthrough from being peculiarly fluent on the subject of Hungarian real estate (because I once bought a flat there) to being able to discuss other aspects of life, besides square metrage, lift availability, balcony existence and proximity to public transport (plus common costs, possibility of damp, quality of electric wiring and gas heating).

Anyway, my young neighbour's question made me start to wonder which other sounds that we take for granted will soon be disappearing. At present, I suddenly realised, noises are coming and going tremendously quickly. The brisk ring of an old-fashioned telephone has pretty much vanished from most people's houses. That rather nice airy sound with faint pings in it that heralded connection to the Internet in the early days - evoking an image of electronic waves being sent through great distances of wire, across oceans and deserts, in order to sweep you and your modem into the great embrace of the world wide web - is gone already, although occasionally a fax machine gives a faint approximation of it, (but how long until fax machines disappear?) And the newest sound - the squodgy squeak of a Skype message arriving (and its sister, the semi-tune of beeps that heralds an actual Skype call), how long will it last - and what will replace it?

What other sounds have gone, without my even noticing? I'd love to be reminded of any that other people can think of. I know there is one sound I don't want to change ever - it's the ABC radio news theme, which can be heard from about 49 seconds into this.

9 comments:

  1. I miss the sound of manual typewriters. Especially the carriage return. I even miss the sound of electric ones. I pulled the old olivetti (manual) out recently; my fingers were aching after half a sentence.

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  2. BTW, have you checked out the language learners' book shop on the Rakpart (VII), from memory near Katona József ut corner?

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  3. Is that just near the Gerloczy? And in the same street as a rather smart looking cheese shop? I think I have been in there, but not for ages. I have a manual typewriter I use sometimes, but it is heavy going. And I also have a bulky thing that uses floppy disks. It is some kind of hybrid electric typewriter/computer. It has a much nicer feeling keyboard than computers do now and, when you type, the keys make a rather nice slightly muted sound. I remember that sound from when computers first came in - a sort of watery clicking.

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  4. I don't think it is near the Gerloczy, or a cheese shop. I'd definitely have remembered a cheese shop. I think further north along the river front (upper), the southern end of Margit sziget is opposite.

    Carol Rounds' "Hungarian: an essential grammar" (Routledge) is a good reference grammar, but not really a conversational language-learning text.

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  5. I'm a twit - it's on the Rakpart, so of course it's not near Gerloczy. I shall go and have a look. The real problem though is establishing a daily routine of regular study - I tend to work hard for a bit and then get subsumed by other things and let it drift for a bit, which is hopeless.

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  6. Listening to Hungarian radio, especially interviews, helps build passive language competence, I reckon. Even better if there's someone with you who can translate the bits you miss.

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  7. What I find fascinating is that the sound of a needle being roughty pulled off of a off of a record is used frequently in shows my kids (9 and 7) watch, in order to indicate an abrupt halt in action or thought. They have no reference for what it the sound concretely represents, having been born post record-album (and their father somewhat regretfully having fully embraced digital sound)but they recognize it for what it represents. So, the sound is gone, but the metaphor remains.

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  8. Oh that's right, Chris, I only realise it now you point it out. How odd. I suppose it doesn't make those who've never seen or used an actual record wince at the thought of a scratch being gouged in the vinyl, lucky them

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