Eyyyyyyy Wssup guys This was the entire first post that started a thread in a group I belonged to on Facebook. I think seeing it aged me a decade, and encouraged me to leave the group afterwards. Walking barefoot on broken glass would cause me less distress. All the poster
Continue readingTag: English
Scripturient: English as She is Spoke
One of the more delightful books in my personal library is a reprint of the 1883 American edition of English as She Is Spoke, described by Wikipedia as, …intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book; however, as the “English” translations provided are usually inaccurate or incoherent, it is
Continue readingScripturient: The dictionary of delight
Mohocks, Samuel Johnson informed us in 1755, was the “name of a cruel nation of America given to ruffians who infested, or rather were imagined to infest, the streets of London.” Moky meant dark, as in weather. Gallimatia was nonsense; talk without meaning. Commination was a threat; a denunciation of
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: English Pronunciation – A Poem
A tongue and brain twisting experience. 🙂 Filed under: Humour Tagged: English, logophilia, Poem, Pronunciation
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Abusing quotation marks
What goes through your mind when you see words in a paragraph or a sentence surrounded by quotation marks? Like that sign in the image on your left? That they are words excerpted from conversations or written content? Or that they are special; peculiar words, or perhaps used ironically, sarcastically or
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Kill the Apostrophe? Rubbish! Keep it!
A site has popped up with one of the stupidest ideas about English I’ve read in the past decade or two. It’s called Kill the Apostrophe. Subtle. At first, I thought it was a joke, a spoof. After all, how can one realistically get rid of perhaps the most significant
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde
After reading the play by Shakespeare last week, I decided to tackle Chaucer’s epic 8,000-line poem about the Trojan lovers, Troilus and Cressida (or Criseyde as Chaucer writes it). It’s a long, somewhat meandering piece that begins, in the Online Medieval … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: BC NDP candidate resigns over racist comments against First Nations
By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: Dayleen Van Ryswyk, the BC NDP candidate for Kelowna-Mission, has resigned after the racist comments she made online against Canada’s First Nations surfaced earlier today. She also denigrated French Canadians. Called them bigots. This sad episode will not slow down the New Democrats‘ march to a
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: How did English evolve?
Here’s a fun little video from TED about the evolution of English. This video describes the early days of English’s changes. Some of the more recent alterations are not included, such as the extensive use of pirate terms, robot machine R…
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Kate Middleton Exposes Canada’s Need For The Monarchy
Once a monarchy is to be defended like a Lindsay Lohan, the country that ultimately depends on it for stability will end up in far worse places than rehab. Besides more than enough skin, pictures of a half naked Kate Middleton have revealed why Canada still needs the monarchy. Not
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: The Defamiliarization of a Saturday Morning
This morning, with a brightening glow from my right I looked up from my newspaper to see a fog of falling snow across the yard, neighbouring street, and rooftops below. The unplanned and surprising sight had taken me back, contrasted all the more by the warm mug in my hand
Continue reading