Pronunciation of the English language…

I rather like this: The Chaos

Those who are not native speakers of English (and let us, tonight, include the Australians – simply because they are winning the cricket) may be baffled, at times, by English – but you should hear how we speak and pronounce it in different parts of the country! I am not stupid enough to identify any particular part of Britain.

I quote a few verses – the full version of The Chaos is well worth reading. Clever –  in fact, brilliant.

The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say—said, pay—paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,

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A new dawn… and it may be hangover time…

Britain not ready yet to embrace concepts of continental style drinking according to UK Government.

It was almost inevitable on this day to have another government statement on drinking.. and here it is: “Britons are incapable of emulating the European drinking culture because they “enjoy getting drunk,” Labour party chairman Hazel Blears has said.
She told the Sunday Times people enjoyed “risk-taking” and “want to push the limits of danger”. BBC story

She added that “maybe it’s our Anglo-Saxon mentality” and that there were no “easy answers”. 

I do not have a hangover (rarely do, fortunately) but if you are not so fortunate this morning – here is RUpissed? which may be of some help.

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More perils of blogging…

WASHINGTON – When Robert Steinbuch discovered his girlfriend had discussed intimate details about their sex life in her online diary, the Capitol Hill staffer didn’t just get mad. He got a lawyer. Story

Maybe it was the ‘Lurid testimony about spanking, handcuffs and prostitution’ but it certainly irritated Steinbuch enough to bring a case.  The issue is whether there is a duty to keep other people’s private lives private. Given that the laws of defamation apply just as much on the net as they do to other forms of communication – this case could well be important for those who blog about their lives or who post videos to the net on YouTube and MySpace and disclose private information about others.

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A question of honour…

DISGRACED boxer Naseem Hamed has been stripped of his MBE. The Mirror

It seems that honours below the peerage may be revoked if the recipient has been found guilty of a criminal offence. A number of Knighthoods have been revoked – Sir Anthony Blunt was stripped of his knighthood.

The Cabinet Office explained the reason behind the revocation of Naseem Hamed’s MBE: “Honours are for people of good character.”

Lord Archer, meanwhile, continues to hold onto his life peerage. It seems that revocation of peerage is a matter beyond the complexity and will of parliament. Does it really matter?

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