Rye-wye

I am sure you have all heard of Strine, the baffling version of the Queen's English spoken in Australia. I didn't know until recently that Strine itself has dialects, of which Rye-Wye is possibly the most abstruse. I hope the following article will of use to students of English.

Rye-Wye: A dialect spoken by the Trine tribe. Strine, like any other living language, is constantly changing as new words and phrases are evolved or introduced and as old ones fall into disuse. All languages, and Strine is no exception, also carry with them many local dialects and sub-languages. These are usually more conservative than the mother tongue. Like the side eddies in a river they remain static and self-contained - almost unaffected by the main stream of the language, and thus they become increasingly cryptic and obscure.
Such a dialect is Rye-Wye, which is spoken only by the Trine tribes over the public address systems of metropolitan railway stations. All attempts to decipher this esoteric dialect have been so far unsuccessful, and it is now believed that it is not understood by even the Trine tribes who speak it. Rye-Wye is, in short, a ritualistic chant, the purpose of which is not to inform but to frighten away any passengers or other hostile spirits who may be lurking in the underground. For this reason it is not only terrifyingly loud but also
breathtakingly dissonant. The following are typical examples:

 (a) `Awe lathers trine nair stannenat num-rye teen plafform pliz.
Istrine term night sear. Awe lattpliz.'

(b) `Nuffor plafform nawshawtrine stomming milce point naw sinny
chasswood norl staish toresby.'

(c) `Trine num-rye teen plafform gerster rare fern, bird and stair feel
lonely.'

You can say that again.

Signs of the times

Premier jour de classe à Ville St-Laurent...

1er septembre... le directeur fait l'appel des élèves.

-"Mustapha El Ekhzeri"

-"Présent"

-"Achmed El Cabul"

-"Présent"

-"Kadir Sel Ohlmi" 

-"Présent"

-"Mohammed Endahrha"

-"Présent"

-" Ala In Ben Oit"

Silence. 

-" Ala In Ben Oit"

La classe demeure silencieuse.

- Pour la dernière fois:

" Ala In Ben Oit". 

Soudain un garçon dans la dernière rangée se lève et dit au directeur:

- C'est moi, mais ça se prononce: Alain Benoit. 

A what of what?

I have discovered that I am not a serious birder. Maybe that should be Serious Birder, a separate species in the genus Ornithophilus. The other day I put out a query to our local bird fraternity/sorority asking if anyone could supply me with the correct noun of assembly (collective noun) for a flock of Pheasants. Via google, I had tracked down a nye, a bouquet, a head, a warren and a nide, none of which I had ever heard before. The question provoked a short string but no satisfactory answer. One response stopped me in my tracks, a scathing dismissal of the whole idea of collective nouns for birds. Many of these nouns are Victorian coinages, many of them not used, but some of them very appropriate and still used by some of us, eg, "a charm of goldfinches" or "a gaggle of geese". But the scathing dismisser asserted that "serious birders despise this sort of nonsense", or words to that effect..
Serious birders, I take it, are a humourless prosaic bunch, who have forgotten that watching birds is a hobby, a source of harmless amusement, in other words, FUN. Oh dear, I am sure that another characteristic of the serious birder is that s/he has great aural and visual acuity and is therefore able - or wants to be able - to identify every bird that flies up, flits across, farts and fcuks off again.
When my sight and hearing were better than they are now, I suppose I was obsessed in the same way, but, honestly, I never lost my sense of joy in watching birds, reading about birds, and even amassing a list of the collective nouns of various bird species.
So there you are. I am not Ornithophilus severus. I am a member of that other species Ornithophilus frivolus. Frankly, anyone who does not get a buzz from a collective noun like "a tok of capercaillie" is missing the meaning of life. I'm serious.

Semi-bloody-otics

Ever since I heard that Woody Allen had been chastised by a talking elevator, I have tried to be on good terms with machines. What frustrates me, though, is how quickly I reach the perimeter where enlightenment stops and ignorance begins. I have, for example, a microwave oven in which I can easily cook frozen meals or reheat a cold cup of coffee, but when I look at the fascia with its array of symbols, I realise that this machine can do far more than I ever ask of it. Similarly, I can use my fan-assisted oven to burn a pizza with the best of them, but I have no idea how to use the timer, mainly because all the instructions are given in icons.
Anyway, the reason for this belated grump (yes, it is a grump and we are just coming to the grump's nub) is that I bought a beautiful shirt recently and decided that it would be unfair to launder it in the usual manner, viz, on the mini programme along with oily rags, bedsocks, furlined jockstraps and the like. So I read the label on the shirt that bears the washing instructions. More bloody icons! I ask you, how intuitive is the meaning of each symbol in the following chart:

It's hard enough to understand machines as it is without baffling us with all this semiotic guff. Frankly, I'd rather have something in Hungarian or Fulani than a triangle with a dot in it to tell me that  I should put the shirt on a preheated baking tray before cooking it in the washing machine.

Consultation with Dr A, 20 October 2011

[If you are fond of your arse, you might want to skip this blog entry, since it might well bore it off you]

The X-rays that were done last Friday show a moderate degree of degeneration in both hips, and also some kind of bony growth in both that is probably interfering with the proper functioning of the hips.
Dr A also did a thorough examination of my knees and agreed that the articulation of the left knee in particular is very poor, ie, it has stiffened up so that I cannot straighten the leg, and therefore I walk with the leg bent to compensate. This in turn is probably what is causing all the groin and other muscular pain. The upshot is that I have been referred to the Musculoskeletal Assessment and Treatment Service, after which a decision will be made on the best course of action, up to and including surgery.

Susan who?

Susan Sarandon is an actress, or whatever you call actresses these days now that it is not politically correct to call them actresses. What I can tell you about her is that she has, as they say in Liverpool, "a gob on her like a robber's dog". In a TV interview recently, she referred to the present Pope as "that nazi". Anyone who has heard him speak or has read anything he has written on the evils of the nazi regime knows that he (and his family) were in no way nazi sympathisers. I assume that the actress's flippant comment was not meant seriously, and that it simply demonstrates that in addition to having a gob on her like a robber's dog, she has a brain the size of a pea, only less useful.
I looked her up and she was either Thelma or Louise in the film of that name, you remember, where at the end, the two women kissed on the mouth and then drove over the cliff. What a lezzie! (No, of course I don't mean that, but it's on a par with her offensive comment about Pope Benedict).

Something is a-foot

My feet and I have never had what you might call a close relationship. Not surprising since they are nearly 2 metres away at the other end of my body. On the other hand, I have never abused them, and they have never failed to fill my socks.
But with the present crisis, I can't even reach the dear darling pedal extremities (pace Fats Waller), so for the last 3-4 weeks my toenails, neglected and uncut,  have been turning into eagle's talons. Today, however, all was resolved when a nice lady called Sharon, a chiropodist (podiatrist?), came to my house, sat before me and used all manner of implements to pare and shape my toenails. I tell you, when she had done, I was almost tempted to ask for some scarlet nail polish: they have never looked so beautiful.

It seemed a shame to put socks back on, but the weather has turned cold, and in any case there wouldn't have been anyone to see my feet if I had left them naked. But at least I've told you about my feet, and you can use your imagination for the rest.