Fonnëtick Inglish ? Wots the poynt ? But its a lahf, I gess. The trick tu this hol spelling gaym Iz keeping things abowt the saym. The needlesly bizärr will just disjöÿnt, A kays ov ‘morr iz less’, So dohnt bee oeverly nuröttick, Just giv hints ov the exsötick. For instans, difrent things ar dun For singul-sillabulz – It helps keep wurds the morr fammïlyer, Stops things getting even sillyer. But in the end, its just a bit ov fun To mayk sum nurdy roolz. I dohnt intënd tu laber it – My spelchecker wuhd hav a fit !
You can’t understand a word I’m saying That’s okay, let me sing it all again Tu ne peux pas comprendre un mot que je dis That’s okay, let me try to explain Du kannst kein Wort verstehen, das ich sage But I’m sure I can make my meaning plain Non potes intelligere verbum me dicens But no communication is in vain
All we need to do is turn the subtitles on Activer les sous-titres Schalten Sie die Untertitel ein Conversus in sub textu And we all can get along And sing the same song in our own way Because we all say Yeah and Okay.
I don’t know why the wilderbeest Deserves a second name – Of all the cattles, he’s the least From a European frame. We don’t see herds of wilderbeests In the hills of Tuscany, Or sweeping down from out the East To the beaches of Torquay.
I don’t know why he has a G That is and isn’t said – These grammar rules are traps for me, Like cowpats where I tread. My tolerance for the dear gnu Is very nearly full – So whether with one beat or two, He’s a very silly bull.
Double-A in English ? Well, that can’t be right. What are we to do with this alpha-oversight ? A whiff of the exotic, though who knows from which address ? So how do we pronounce it ? I guess we’ll have to guess. It looks a bit Old-Testament, like Baal the Canaanite, Although surely ancient Hebrews had a diff’rent way to write ? With diff’rent letter-forms, and with not-a vowel included – Whoever chose the spellings in the Roman was deluded ! With a single-A that’s long and a double-A that’s short, Spelling things in English shouldn’t be a tricky sport… Our batteries are flat and our gearboxes stall – So we need to gain sobriety, but just who can we call ?
Infact, the double-A in Hebrew loaners are probably a relic of a slight ‘h’ sound between them, splitting them into two separate syllables. The Greeks, when translating the Bible, had little use for mid-word H’s, and eventually the sounds merged (though not the letters, because as everyone knows spelling must remain fossilised). See also Aaron.
And yes, I am aware that Aardvaark is usually spelled with only three A’s, and I’ve decided I don’t give a toss. Maybe Afrikaans pronounces ‘aar’ and ‘ar’ differently, but nobody in English does (hence the difference (and lack of difference) between Haarlem and Harlem). So if you are happy being silly in the front half, then I see no reason to get serious with the aarse-end.
Ev’rybody, get an offence to take, You too can be just as special – Your very identity’s at stake, And now you are such a delicate vessel. All the cool kids are getting upset, While words are being redefined. Remember, the world owes you respect To spare your innocent mind.
Ev’ryone thinks of Alpha, Alpha waves and alpha dogs – Beta has its beta blockers, Beta tests and beta logs – Gamma gives us gamma rays, And tennis gives us Gamma strings – And Delta – so much Delta ! With its rivers and its wings But no-one thinks of Omicron, As obscure as you get, What excitement could there be In the bowels of the alphabet…?
Its time to ditch the postrophe, Its use is a catostrophe – A snare for those who cant decide Just how these ticks should be applied. Theyre deathly silent in our speech, Beyond the pedants overreach, Yet still weer well and understood – Just cos theyre there dont mean we should.
This poem was kindly accepted in the Spring 2023 edition of Blue Unicorn.
I never understood loopholes, I mean understood it as an actual thing – I get that they’re escapes from laws – But are we then fenced-in by string ? They might have referred to arrow-slits, But they only fit an arrow’s stem. They might be thinking of knotholes, But only secrets can pass through them. The breach in the wall of the castle of law Would be a backdoor, or overhanging beams. So I never understood why ‘loopholes’ at all – Their meaning escapes my logic, it seems.
A tick is a bug that sucks up meaning, A tiny check-mark on the skin That no amount of language-cleaning Will dislodge now it’s sunk its snout in. A facial tic on our pristine tongue Of too many meanings from a single noun – Oh for a speech that’s regular and young Before the parasites invade the town. We use words on tick, to be paid for later, Like the stuffing in a tick-case that is already frayed, Or the ticks on a rule till the namesakes are greater And we’ve spewed-out enough for a tickertape parade. It ticks us off that such gaudy schlocks lurk, But they’ve plagued us forever, syphoning their fraction – Older than moments, older than clockwork, The tick is as ancient as Anglo-Saxon.
‘Tick’ is also a Middle English word for goat (whose latter name is even older), and though thoroughly out-of-use can still be found in placenames such as Tickenhurst.
Incidentally, what does a twitcher call the first whinchat of the year ? A tick tick.
Okay, hands up, gang, If you’ve ever used, Or even ever heard of an ‘interrobang’ ? You all look so confused at the word, And I’m not surprised – Of all the useless punctuation, This abomination ought to be the most despised. But no !, the lumpy little toad Is honoured with a Unicode While decent, necessary marks Are offered no abode. These silly lexographic larks With oh so little help to bring Are only ever seen in fun – I mean, has anyone The slightest need to use the bloody thing ? And meanwhile, I cannot succeed To get the Question-Comma recognised – Now there’s a boy whose time has come, Who should be common, should be prized, Instead of all this tweedle-dum – Mine shows our queries raised at root, Mid-flow, when the clauses overshoot, – Not waiting till the line has passed And a full-stop hoves in view at last, To plonk our squiggle over, when the matter’s all-but moot. Yet ev’ry font is pleading ignorance, And claiming that they’re full – Such bull ! So now my hybrid glyph won’t stand a chance. But why ?, when they’d gladly welcome-in the clang Of that bastard offspring runt, the Interrobang !? Oh…oh yeah… I guess I kinda coulda used one there…
And yes, I did use ‘to hove’ in the present tense, and I’m not even sorry.
That said, Wiktionary suggests that it was a separate Middle English verb roughly meaning ‘to linger’ which became conflated with the past tense of ‘to heave’, and which also spun-off ‘to hover’.
Meanwhile, here are a few examples of what we we’re missing. Sort it out, Times New Roman !
