Dragon

I too enjoyed that (though I've always thought the plural of moose should be meese!)

matthew

...........The History of the English Language...............


In the beginning there was an island off the coast of Europe. It had no name, for the natives had no language, only a collection of grunts and gestures that roughly translated to "Hey, Gimmie" and "Pardon me, but would you happen to have any woad?
Then the Romans invaded it and called it Britain, because the natives were blue, nasty, brutish [British] and short. This was the start of the importance of u (and its mispronunciation) to the language. after building some roads, killing off some of the nasty little blue people and walling up the rest, the Romans left, taking the language instruction manual with them.
The British were bored so they invited the barbarians to come over (under Hengist) and "Horsa" 'round a bit. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes brought slightly more refined vocal noises. All the vocal sounds of this primitive language were onomatopoeic, being derived from the sounds of weapons striking a foe. "Sss" and "th" for example are the sounds of a draw cut, "k" is the sound of a solidly landed axe blow, "b" and "d" are the sounds of a head dropping onto rock and sod respectively, and "gl" is the sound of a body splashing into a bog. Vowels (which were either gargles in the back of the throat or sharp exhalations) were derived from the sounds the foe himself made when struck. The barbarians had so much fun that they decided to stay for post-revel. The British, finding that they had lost future use of the site, moved into the hills to the west and called themselves Welsh.
The Irish, having heard about language from Patrick, came over to investigat. When they saw the shiny vowels, they pried them loose and took them home. They then raided Wales and stole both their cattle and their vowels, so the poor Welsh had to make do with sheep and consonants. ("Old Ap Ivor hadde a farm, L Y L Y W! And on that farm he hadde somme gees. With a dd dd here and a dd dd there ...") To prevent future raids, the Welsh started calling themselves "Cymry" and gave even longer names to their villages. They figured if no one could pronounce the name of their people or the names of their towns, then no one would visit them. (The success of the tactic is demonstrated still today. How many travel agents have you heard suggest a visit to scenic Llyddumlmunnyddthllywddu?)
Meantime, the Irish brough all the shiny new vowels home to Erin. But of course they didn't know that there was once an instruction manual for them, so they scattered the vowels throughout the language purely as ornaments. Most of the new vowels were not pronounced at all, and the rest were pronounced differently depending on which kind of consonant they either preceded or followed.
Next the Danes came over and saw the pretty vowels bedecking all the Irish words. "Ooooh!" they said. They raided Ireland and brough the vowels back home with them. However, the Vikings couldn't keep track of all the Irish rules so they simply pronounced all the vowels "oouuoo."
In the meantime, the French had invaded Britain, which was populated by descendants of the Germanic Angles, Saxons and Jutes. After a generation or two, the people were speaking German with a French accent and calling it English. Then the Danes invaded again, crying, "Oouuoo! Oouuoo!," burning abbeys and trading with the townspeople.
The Britons that an invasion by the Romans didn't kill, intermarried with visiting Irish and became Scots. Against the advice of their travel agents, the decided to have a trip to Wales. (The Scots couln't read the signposts that said, "This way to Llyddyllwwddymmllwylldd," but they could smell the sheep a league away.) The Scots took the sheep home with them and made some of them into haggis. What they made with the others it's impossible to say, but Scots are known to this day for having hairy legs.
The former Welsh, being totally bereft, moved down out of the hills and into London. Because they were the only people in the islands who played flutes instead of bagpipes, they were called Tooters. This made them very popular. In short order, Henry Tooter got elected King and began popularising ornate, unflattering cothing. Soon, everybody was wearing over-adorned dress, playing the flute, speaking German with a French accent, pronouncing all their vowels "oouuoo" (which was fairly easy given the French accent) and making lots of money in the wool trade. Because they were rich, people smiled more (remember, at this time "Beowulf" and "Canterbury Tales" were the only tabloids and gave generally favourable reviews even to the Danes). And since it is next to impossible to keep your vowels in the back of your throat (even if you do speak German with a French accent) while smiling and saying "oouuoo", the Great Vowel Shift came about and tranformed the English language.
The very richest had their vowels shifted out in front of their teeth. They settled in Manchester and later Boston.
There were a few poor souls who, cut off from the economic prosperity of the wool trade, continued to swallow their vowels. They wandered the countryside in misery and despair until they came to the docks of London, where their dialect devolved into the incomprehensible language known as Cockney. Later, it was taken overseas and further brutalised by merging it with Dutch and Italian to create Brooklynese.
Thats what happened, you can check for yourself

matthew

..........Phoney Phonetics........

One reason why I cannot spell,
Although I learned the rules quite well
Is that some words like coup and through
Sound like threw and flue'and who;
When oo is never spelled the same,
The juice becomes a guessing game;
And then I ponder over though,
Is it spelled so or throw or bow,
I mean the bow that sounds like plow
And not the bow that sounds like row
The row that is pronounced like roe.
I wonder, too, why rough and tough,
Why isn't drought spelled just like route,
Or doubt or pout or sauerkraut?
When words all sound so much the same
To change the spelling seems a shame.
There is no sense - see sounds like cents
In making suche a difference
Between the sight and sound of words;
Each spelling rule that undergirds
The way a word should look will fail
And often prove to no avail <br> Because exceptions will negate
The truth of what the rule may state;
That sound the same as gruff and muff,
Are spelled like bough and through, for they
Are both pronounced a different way.
And why can't I spell trough and cough
The same as I do scoff and golf?
So though I try, I still despair
And moan and mutter "It's not fair"
That I'm held up to ridicule
And made to look like such a fool?

maddyjean08

Ok, I didn't read any of that.

matthew

.

pollyesther

Great poem Matthew...spelling is my worst subject lol

GOLDIEGIRL8

Great poem! ...Spelling is my 2nd best subject lol

matthew

just FYI: I pulled those off the web...

GOLDIEGIRL8

:)

GOLDIEGIRL8

MOMY I NOT WAYT FOR hALOWEN

GOLDIEGIRL8

So sorry, my little 4 yr old girl is w/ me right now. Daddys on vacation.

maddyjean08

That's pretty good spelling for a 4 year old.....

Login

There is a new Hovis advertisement ... a continuation of the famous one that was filmed on 'Gold Hill', but this one moves rapidly forward in time, from Victorian England through to the millenium, featuring events in British history (not all of them!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4tFzuFGUOI&feature=related If you cut and paste this, remember to look for spaces that may occur in it, and remove them.

There is also an explanation of events in the film here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovis

maddyjean08

Huh?

lilalee

Login, what fun that was to watch!! Now I know what was in the package!!

Baldur

That was rather clever matthew, I'm disappointed that you are not the author.

polenta

Login, the commercial was so interesting to view. There was a TV commercial here about a cold meat factory that resembled this one and emphasized on only the fifty last years. I suppose the ad you showed us could have been the inspiration for it. Of course 122 years is a lot of time and I kind of feel nostalgic about things I haven't even lived through. Beautiful piece!!! Thanks for sharing it with us.

polenta

The following is an interesting anecdote:

The Uruguayan Federico Alvarez, absolutely unknown here till today, posted a video on You Tube last Thursday. The video cost him 300 dollars, most of which was used to pay people he hired to run, even though they didn't know why they were running.
250,000 people saw this video and this guy received invitations from many studios in Hollywood like Sony, etc. Tomorrow he's flying there paid by his hosts. I saw an interview where he shows his surprise. Studios say that if he did this video with 300 dollars, imagine what he would do with 30 millions. For the time being, nothing has happened but at least he has a free visit to Hollywood. LOL
This is the address to the video where robots destroy Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GxdTdrNmg4

Dragon

That was great polenta! For only $300 bucks, amazing.

sheftali52

That was quite an amazing video, polenta.