Geoff sent me this article to post. I could only do it by cutting and pasting it. The author seems to dislike any kind of foreign language (even Latin) that is a part of our language. Frankly, I disagree with him. I love those Latin phrases. Of course, it's all tongue in cheek.
quote:
Why can’t everyone in the whole world speak English like we do in Muncie and like Shakespeare wrote and like Jesus spoke as reported by King James in the Bible?
I’ll be reading some book or an article in the newspaper and getting along just fine when — boom — the writer will use some foreign word or phrase and confuse me.
Somebody gets murdered and they talk about the corpus delecti. What is that? A delicious corpse? Somebody goes to court and pleads habeas corpus. What is that? Speak English please!
I read a history of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. John Wilkes Booth shot him and then jumped down to the stage at the Ford Theater, exclaimed Sic semper tyrannis, and then disappeared into Virginia. What does Sic semper tyrannis mean? Near as I can figure out it means, “I always get sick on trains.” Who cares? Why didn’t he holler in English?
The most confusing language in the world is French. Nobody but the French can spell it or pronounce it or tell you what it means. They talk through their noses. Especially odd are their culinary words.
What’s tomato bisque soup? Is that pronounced biskew? Who cares? Has it got biscuits in it?
Then the French make a pie that’s got cheese and eggs and onions in it. Do they call it pizza pie? No, they call it quiche, which is probably pronounced kwitchy for all I know! Why didn’t they just call it pie?
The French make a good whipped pudding, but do they call it a pudding? No! They call it a mousse, which is pronounced mouse for all I know. Not exactly a nice word for a food.
In a French restaurant they always have some good appetizers, but they call them hors d’oeuvres, or something like that. Some of us in Muncie pronounce that as whores’ ovaries. It’s enough to make you lose your appetite. Why can’t the French use English like we do in Muncie?
This language problem has even involved the holy game of golf. Isn’t that awful? For instance a free second tee shot has since time immemorial been called a Mulligan shot. Now the Russians call it a wodka shot, Buddhists call it a bud. Israelis call it a Horowitz. Shintoists call it a kamikaze shot. Proper Brits call it an Admiral Nelson. Eskimos don’t call it anything. They don’t play golf. They just sit around in an igloo and eat whale blubber.
Even the English language is sometimes obscure and top heavy. What if you develop deafness? Sometimes we say you have become “hard of hearing” or “acoustically challenged.” Whatsamatter with just saying “deaf?”
Why can’t the whole world learn to speak the English language? If it was good enough for Jesus and King James and Shakespeare, it should be good enough for all.
What do we in Muncie call people who live here now but were born beyond our city limits? Migrants? Immigrants? Visitors? Ethnics? Strangers? None of those. We call them foreigners.
I know that some visitors to Muncie think we are illiterate and have a strange accent. To them I say foo and fap and crimenently and notary sojac and go soak your head.
I’m becoming somewhat bilious so I have to stop this essay. Farewell! See you another Saturday.
Yes, Geoff has problems. I cannot make the goofy pad that resides below the keyboard act as a proper mouse does on my new crotchtop computer, thus cannot cut and paste.
The author writes a humor column for the local newspaper, and was satirizing the parochialism of this area. I guess one must live here to find it funny.
I had to same problem some time ago with an older mouse that depended on friction to move its controls. But the newer one uses light beams in some way and it works fine.
