After attending Biolink-2004 yesterday in Boston, I took the train back to Philly today. This morning in South Station, as I was waiting to board, I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged male railroad workers. One of them said to the other "He was gettin' all autistic on me." The other one responded "Boy, I know what you mean."
"Huh, " I thought to myself. "And they say guys aren't interested in rapport talk." But as the conversation continued, I realized that I'm out of practice interpreting the r-less Boston accent:
"Yeah, he was squattin' down and takin' shots from all different weird angles, and I says to him, 'cut it out and just take some normal pictures, for the love of Mike.' You know, you pay somebody to take pictures of your daughter's wedding, you don't want a lot of shots lookin' up the best man's trouser leg, right?"
Posted by Mark Liberman at May 7, 2004 03:30 PM