

"Dump Shock" - RiderOfGiraffes
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki/TresSeaver?DumpShock

======
patio11
Its funny: I can just barely follow a conversation in three languages but if
I'm writing or coding in Japanese/English and you come up to me and speak the
other my brain freezes for 5 ~ 10 seconds for the context switch. I won't be
able to remember even the general shape of what you said, let alone parse it,
and whatever I was just typing typically turns out as gibberish. (Strangely
dyslexic gibberish: I've typed things like "tip a gully terms shout gerbil
fish" into emails before when accosted in Japanese.)

~~~
silentbicycle
In college, I had the same professor for Spanish and German. (In the same
room, too!) Every once in a while, I would accidentally mix up the
vocabularies. My professor's mind locked up for a second before he switched
gears, realized I was talking in the wrong language, and then switched back.

~~~
JshWright
As someone who struggles with this at 25, this is fairly discouraging to
hear...

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pvg
What happened to Coleridge wasn't "dump shock" (or DumpShock in the UglyWiki
convention that makes every linked term look like something from a made-up
language pronounced by Comic Book Guy). He had his mellow harshed.

 _Coleridge claimed that the poem was inspired by an opium-induced dream
(implicit in the poem's subtitle A Vision in a Dream) but that the composition
was interrupted by a person from Porlock_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan>

~~~
Estragon

      Coleridge received the Person from Porlock
      And ever after called him a curse
      Then why did he hurry to let him in?
      He might have hid in the house.
      
      It was not right of Coleridge in fact it was wrong
      (But often we all do wrong)
      As the truth is I think, he was already stuck
      With Kubla Khan.
      
      He was weeping and crying, I am finished, finished
      I shall never write another word of it,
      When along comes the Person from Porlock
      And takes the blame for it.
    

<http://www.artofeurope.com/smith/smi4.htm>

Oh, and also: <http://www.robertfulford.com/porlock.html>

------
proemeth
Illustration of the concept:
[http://hestia.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5c9b53ef01156f5cd7129...](http://hestia.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5c9b53ef01156f5cd712970c-pi)

~~~
jrockway
The one time I wish it wasn't referentially _transparent_...

