A story about books
Mar. 3rd, 2009 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantae
Once upon a time, when I was in my last year of high school, my "Finnish thing" started. I went to the public library and signed out this one textbook, Mastering Finnish. It totally blew me away with how complicated the whole language really was, and didn't make a lot of sense to me. But I really liked how the text wasn't so "yay, tourist language!" with silly cartoon drawings and stuff (in fact, there are no cartoons in the book at all). I also really liked the section at the back where all of the grammar material was recompiled.
I have yet to find another textbook with such a presentation, and I eventually discovered for myself that the way this book presents grammar is quite non-conventional and sometimes very convoluted. But I revisited this book a few weeks ago, and it seems to me that it is precisely the convoluted method that actually explains some of the stuff better to me and structures it in a way that makes sense to English speakers. And of course I still liked the balance the book struck between conversational lessons (meh), reading prose (okay), and hardcore grammar lessons (yay).
So I thought, you know what, I need to buy this now. I asked if a bookstore could order it in for me, and they suggested that it's from such a small publisher it'd be better for me to contact them directly. So, last week, I sent an email to the publisher (which turns out to be a publisher specializing in stuff for Finnish-North Americans) saying that I wanted to buy this book (and asking if I could mail the payment since I can't pay directly with a credit card)...
...and the author of the textbook replies to my email. I'd known all along that he's the professor of Finnish at the University of Toronto (and I was sort of sad that I didn't go there for university - I may have applied there but I don't remember anymore) and since I rather admired his book, I couldn't help but get a little too excited ;)
Meanwhile, I had shown this book (the library copy) to a buddy of mine who seems to like meddling around with languages (I don't approve of his methodology, but buddies are buddies) and he was also interested in it. I messaged him to say that the author sent me an email!!!! and the first thing that came to his mind was to question if he was legit, if it was a fraud o.ô. I replied, his email signature block is just like that of most professors: name, academic titles, address, contact info. If you want to look into that, by all means do so. And he's Finnish-Canadian. Just chill!
But it got even better than that; once I confirmed my order, I was also told that I'd be sent an invoice and only needed to pay once I received the items. People don't normally do this anymore for individual customers - it's just our culture. I prefer to look at it as testimony to the Finnish attitudes toward trust and good faith.
I told my buddy this, and I hope that by this point it has eliminated any doubts about Professor Vähämäki's "legitimacy."
I have also received my books today. You might be wondering what the second book is. It's the Journal of Finnish Studies, V.9 No.2, on Finnishness in Finland and North America. I'm not afraid of academics (or convoluted explanations of grammar!) when it's going to help me get to the heart of something that I really want to know.
And yeah, my cheque will be in the mailtomorrow morning. ;) I had to go out this afternoon anyway so I dropped it in the mail box already. But if you want to be technical about it, the box gets emptied tomorrow morning.
I have yet to find another textbook with such a presentation, and I eventually discovered for myself that the way this book presents grammar is quite non-conventional and sometimes very convoluted. But I revisited this book a few weeks ago, and it seems to me that it is precisely the convoluted method that actually explains some of the stuff better to me and structures it in a way that makes sense to English speakers. And of course I still liked the balance the book struck between conversational lessons (meh), reading prose (okay), and hardcore grammar lessons (yay).
So I thought, you know what, I need to buy this now. I asked if a bookstore could order it in for me, and they suggested that it's from such a small publisher it'd be better for me to contact them directly. So, last week, I sent an email to the publisher (which turns out to be a publisher specializing in stuff for Finnish-North Americans) saying that I wanted to buy this book (and asking if I could mail the payment since I can't pay directly with a credit card)...
...and the author of the textbook replies to my email. I'd known all along that he's the professor of Finnish at the University of Toronto (and I was sort of sad that I didn't go there for university - I may have applied there but I don't remember anymore) and since I rather admired his book, I couldn't help but get a little too excited ;)
Meanwhile, I had shown this book (the library copy) to a buddy of mine who seems to like meddling around with languages (I don't approve of his methodology, but buddies are buddies) and he was also interested in it. I messaged him to say that the author sent me an email!!!! and the first thing that came to his mind was to question if he was legit, if it was a fraud o.ô. I replied, his email signature block is just like that of most professors: name, academic titles, address, contact info. If you want to look into that, by all means do so. And he's Finnish-Canadian. Just chill!
But it got even better than that; once I confirmed my order, I was also told that I'd be sent an invoice and only needed to pay once I received the items. People don't normally do this anymore for individual customers - it's just our culture. I prefer to look at it as testimony to the Finnish attitudes toward trust and good faith.
I told my buddy this, and I hope that by this point it has eliminated any doubts about Professor Vähämäki's "legitimacy."
I have also received my books today. You might be wondering what the second book is. It's the Journal of Finnish Studies, V.9 No.2, on Finnishness in Finland and North America. I'm not afraid of academics (or convoluted explanations of grammar!) when it's going to help me get to the heart of something that I really want to know.
And yeah, my cheque will be in the mail
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Date: 2009-03-03 11:14 pm (UTC)Autographs and Ominous Signs
Date: 2009-03-04 04:52 am (UTC)Also, if I hadn't emailed them about the books, the niftyness about the professor wouldn't have happened... Besides, I'm a bit old-fashioned like that.
...alas, I too realized too late (after he sent the "you should get them in the mail next week" email) to ask for an autograph. Turns out he's also the editor-in-chief of that academic journal (and if I didn't move around so often I'd get a subscription1, hahahahaha >_<), so it's no surprise that he probably manages the company and has all of these ... books just lying around.
Another ominous thing that you may or may not understand (since I don't remember how much I told you about the Antonuk story in high school) - but there was a little publishers' promo bookmark in the package with my books, with the illustration of the cover of an English translation of the Kalevala on the front. Nothing inherently ominous about that, but it is of the same edition of the book involved in this incident (http://kyrasantae.livejournal.com/12014.html). That creeped me out a bit.
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1 Don't all social science and humanities keeners buy and keep random journal issues on their bookshelves?
Re: Autographs and Ominous Signs
Date: 2009-03-04 04:57 am (UTC)Oh yeah, I wasn't even thinking about that. Lol.