Marina says I wrote a 'nice post about her' (well I did)... and now she's made a nice post about me too!!
One or two of her readers are a bit 'up in arms' though and not too complimentary either... coming out for her like knights in shining armour! ha ha Quite right too... all good fun guys!
Marina... however many guys you have helping you (behind the scenes... doing an excellent job too), like bees around a honeypot... I think all's well with the world... things as they should be and you are a clever girl Marina... and dead sexy! :)
Oh... any chance of one of your famous calendars?? Actually, I'll be happy with just a pic... especially if it's a signed one!?? :@:@ ;)
If you're male and you haven't come across Marina, the very sexy Russian 'Wordsmith' before... then I can assure you you're going to enjoy this!
Marina Orlova is her full name... and she proves intelligence is sexy!
Marina is a YouTube celebrity and the lady behind (or is it in the forefront) of HotForWords, a site (apparently) dedicated to teaching students across the globe about the intricacies of language.... at least that's what the supposed basis is!!
As a way of introducing her to you (it's the best I can do I'm afraid)... here's one of my favourite recent videos of her, showing Marina teaching us... a 'Cure for Hiccups':
Apparently, Marina's love for words began because she wanted to learn English. "In Russia the best way to do that is to study philology, which gets into the origins of words," she says.
"This makes learning so much more interesting, and the result was that I eventually became a teacher for about 20 high-schoolers back in Russia.
It was a lot of fun, and the students never seemed to miss class!"
No, I bet they didn't. Hardly surprising!
Though she never planned on becoming an internet celebrity, Marina says it just happened. One day, she received an email that inspired her to reach out to new students, via the web.
"My two degrees in philology were going to waste and one day in 2006 a friend sent me an email which said ‘YouTube.com - check it out.’ That email changed my life! I immediately created a channel and started uploading videos."
The rest as they say... is history... as now, her videos have been viewed over 170 million times!!
With a new word each week, her virtual classroom grows daily. Her calendar girl good looks and intelligence have granted her quite an audience, but given the choice... would she rather be pretty or smart? "I'd rather be smart!" she says.
Yes Marina... quite right... me too!!
Call me an old cynic... and I really don't want to spoil any of the fun... but come on guys... I'm as red blooded as you... and there's no doubting the fact that Marina is delicious and sexy (and quite amusing too)... but you just got to see through this!! This is just a different (and clever granted) take on an age old idea... a new perspective in offering us red blooded males (with perhaps more money than brains)... SEXY ladies in the media!!
I bet my bottom dollar (not sure if that's a well chosen phrase) that Marina is not the only one 'behind' HotForWords... there's a hell of a lot more going on in that background... believe me... including a few clever techie geeks and marketing people!
But... do I care? Not a bit... in fact, I take my hat off to Marina today... for maximising her very obvious potential... and very attractive upfront future... in fact... I've joined 6,843 others and am now following her updates on Twitter... we don't want to miss our weekly dose of interesting etymology now do we??!
Yep... it seems like the grumpy old Gibo's still got it!
