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Quodlibet

quod·li·bet \Quod"li*bet\ (kw[o^]d"l[i^]*b[e^]t), n. [L., what you please.] 1. A nice point; a subtilty; a debatable point. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) Also quodlibertarian and quodlibetic - purely academic!

English Spelling? Does English really work this way?

* Pronounce "ghoti".
* Pronounce "Phtholognyrrh".
* Spell "coffee" completely wrong.
Go to the bottom of the page for answers!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

G'day Mate, from the Dag!

A Kiwi friend turned me on today to a listing of New Zealand Kiwi Slang
.
Some of it seems quite normal, to me, or to be typical Brit Slang, as in the use of bonnet and boot for Car hood and trunk. Some we Americans would consider not for polite speech ,as with the use of the sh_t and f___ word.

All in all some interesting stuff. Finally found where the Crossword puzzle answer Ute for Utility Vehicle comes from.

Well, Cheerio, for now!

Don

p.s. dag: humorous person, joker, comedian, hard case (hard case: joker, comedian, witty person)!
Posted by at 2 comments:
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Answers:
  • ghoti is pronounced: fish, 'gh' as in tough, 'o' as in women and 'ti' as in motion! Attributed to George Bernard Shaw by some. Visit GHOTI for a rant against this "joke" about english pronuciation.
  • Phtholognyrrh pronounced: Turner, According to a Mr. Turner who insisted on signing his name that way according to Robert M. Rennick in I Didn't Catch Your Name, Verbatim® Vol. XXix, No2. Mr Turner explains: " Look, the phth is like phthisic, which is pronounced t; olo is like colonel, which is pronounced ur; gn as in gnat is pronounced n; and yrrh as in myrrh, is pronounced er. So you have Turner. Nothing could be simpler." Reader's Digest, Jan . 1941, p. 42
  • coffee spelled completely incorrectly is kauphy! or kaughy!