An interesting essay on a subject to which I had previously given little thought.
9 thoughts on “Honoring The Consonant”
Well, all I can say is Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
It is an interesting piece, though (as was a linked piece on the “schwa”). It would probably not be interesting to an English major, since none of this stuff is taught in public schools anymore.
Other countries do much better in education. I’ve traveled to Germany and France in recent years, for example, and was amazed to hear everyone – from pensioners down to toddlers – all speaking a foreign language…
Chinese can’t be that hard to learn; millions of infants do it every year.
One of the perks of living in a large country that everyone is jealous of.
I didn’t learn about PIE until college and it was in an English class but it is probably a better topic for history classes since it provides so much context to the world as it is today. And if you follow the path long enough, you learn about how stupid it is to think manned means male, a hoax that many of our best and brightest fall for.
People have trouble spelling my name. On the title page for the galley proofs of one of my books, it was rendered “William Martin.” Another time, I was referred to in a book review as “William Wharton.”
I heard a tale of a woman with the last name of King calling somebody in Cleveland.
Cleveland, among many other attributes pro and con, has a large concentration of persons with polysyllabic names like mine,
So the lady got another person on the phone who asked her name,
It’s interesting to me that the further back you go in time, languages are more “growly,” with more complex consonents. PPIE (Pre-Proto-Indo-European” had three different laryngeal consonants (basically gagging sounds). And Old Chinese sounded more or less like Klingon.
Well, all I can say is Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
It is an interesting piece, though (as was a linked piece on the “schwa”). It would probably not be interesting to an English major, since none of this stuff is taught in public schools anymore.
Other countries do much better in education. I’ve traveled to Germany and France in recent years, for example, and was amazed to hear everyone – from pensioners down to toddlers – all speaking a foreign language…
Chinese can’t be that hard to learn; millions of infants do it every year.
One of the perks of living in a large country that everyone is jealous of.
I didn’t learn about PIE until college and it was in an English class but it is probably a better topic for history classes since it provides so much context to the world as it is today. And if you follow the path long enough, you learn about how stupid it is to think manned means male, a hoax that many of our best and brightest fall for.
People have trouble saying my name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Krzyzewski
People have trouble spelling my name. On the title page for the galley proofs of one of my books, it was rendered “William Martin.” Another time, I was referred to in a book review as “William Wharton.”
I heard a tale of a woman with the last name of King calling somebody in Cleveland.
Cleveland, among many other attributes pro and con, has a large concentration of persons with polysyllabic names like mine,
So the lady got another person on the phone who asked her name,
“King”
“Kane?”
“King!”
“Kang?”
No, “King!”
Mill-en-ko-vic?
Mile-en-ko-vic?
My-len-kovic?
Shev-shesh-ki?
P-ah-owl?
Pall?
P-awl?
P’Toc!?
Pretty much.
It’s interesting to me that the further back you go in time, languages are more “growly,” with more complex consonents. PPIE (Pre-Proto-Indo-European” had three different laryngeal consonants (basically gagging sounds). And Old Chinese sounded more or less like Klingon.