"Remember the octopussy"

I attended the first class of my program today: "Scientific Communication in Nutshell", instructed by a guest lecturer from Gothenberg. It was held at the university's very well appointed teaching hospital located 3.5 km in the opposite direction from the university.

Those who know about my reaction to hearing unusual grammatical constructs issued in the Received Pronunciation will understand why misplaced "ap-pos-troffs" get my attention. Similarly, certain styles "increase the risk" of a manuscript being accepted.

Then we came to the squid analogy concerning many uncertain words, in which "a fearful octopussy cloaks itself in ink". I thought I had simply misheard the first time. "This is an octopussy". I glanced at the only other native English speaker in the room to confirm. We try to be stoic. "Remember the octopussy". What does a Bond film have to do with this? This would not have been a problem in a generic Eastern European accent. "Think about the octopussy". Well, yes, that is the problem.

Had JA been in the room instead of the student from the east coast, I would have needed to apologise for disrupting the class in immature laughter.

More seriously, the course is mixing challenges of scientific writing in general, with translating scientific writing into English, without critical distinction. Of consequence, I am learning a great deal about peculiar issues regarding Swedish health researchers who write in English, but not much new about scientific writing. At the very least, I'll be able to pass the PPTs to my MSc student.

I also learned that supervisors can have a greater degree of latitude editing and otherwise contributing to thesises than in Canada.

AC: +0, strangely.