April 06, 2006

• Yes, the English language has a lot of anachronisms that need to be WIPED OUT.
• an oldie:

  The New English The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

• Evidently work has blocked this as an "advocacy site" that violates its policy.
• Do you work at a textbook publishing company? ;-) Seriously, the complexity of English is also its beauty. Modern English words come from such a wide variety of linguistic sources. What would happen to all the poor puns and double entendres if we simplified it?
• O Aaron! Dad of Tori, King of telly! We’ve watched your cheesy drama all our lives How “Charmed” we were to stay at thy “Hotel,” And have a “Hart to Hart” with “Hollywood Wives.” Thou hast a “Melrose Place” within our hearts… Oh, wait…”spelling” the gerund? Nevermind.
• Poems...Spelling...Spelling Bees... Hey! Where the hell has Beeswacky been for the last few days, anyway?
• Shhh - one does not disturb the bees - one merely waits and watches. Although once again roryk and TUM have won the thread with vittiness undt zer *cough* *cough* er with excellent postage skeelz. A toast! To melba!
• I have always felt that the complexity and illogic of English is a lovely reflction of the varied historical forces that worked to shape said language over centuries, even millenia...or, what TUM said.... and what an awesome poem!! I am envisioning a poetry thread entirely dedicated to the heroes of prime time TV.
• Please polish the Polish parquet.
• Now, that's more like it.
• ))) for a handsome post, polychrome!!! His voice did catch -- the mouse was caught. Although we match, we're still unmaught. A plot we hatch, yet all's unhaught. Though some will teach, most are untaught. What's out of reach, remains unraught. My ship I beached; it's still unbaught.
• What would happen to all the poor puns Of which MonkeyFilter has most of the poorest. We would be the repository, of course.
• Awesome post! )))
• Don't ye mean the punitentiary, BlueHorse?
• Several big problems with English: - the great vowel shift, which is the answer to a lot of these spelling questions - no real standardized spelling until at least the 18th century, often later - attempts of 18th century grammarians to shoehorn English into Latin's grammatical structure: English has Latinate loan words, of course, but the structure doesn't come from Latin at all. Since language develops organically, there isn't really much way to wipe out all English's weirdness, even if we wanted to. (/me likes to read books on popular linguistics, esp English linguistic history.)
• Ghoti, baby.
• The pronunciation of Erse Gets worse and worse; They spell it Cuchulain -- No fuchulain! -- A.D. Hope
• Another one. oooh, and cognate poems! (Feynman in Brazil.....consequentamente forever!) "To speak Spanish and English is of great importancia It is something you need in any circunstancia. I've a method that shows there's a great abundancia Spanish words that you know each and every instancia......"
• I don't know where polychrome's quote comes from, but surely that's just an example of Latin loans - Spanish just being a modern version of what was once a Latin dialect? /no fun
• I vote we pun-ish Bees for that! /badbee
• P-O-E-M-S. There.
• M-O-P-E-S. 4 now.
• Gone Are the Days Impossible to call a lamb a lambkin or say eftsoons or spell you ladye. My shining armour bleeds when it's scratched; I blow the nose that's part of my visor. When I go pricking o'er the plain I say Eightpence please to the sad conductress. The towering landscape you live in has printed on its portcullis Bed and breakfast. I don't regret it. There are wildernesses enough in Rose Street or the Grassmarket where dragons' breaths are methylated and social workers trap the unwary. So don't expect me, lady with no e, to look at a lamb and feel lambkin or give me a down look because I bought my greaves and cuisses at Marks and Spencers. Pishtushery's out. But oh, how my heart swells to see you perched, perjink, on a bar stool. And though epics are shrunk to epigrams, let me buy you a love potion, a gin, a double. -- Norman MacCaig