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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!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Sam Gamgee's poem to the Troll.

Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.
As a Senior in High School I memorized this poem. It is still one of my favorites. There is a full transcription of the poem by J.R.R Tolkien, with comments, at Troll sat alone on his seat of stone.

I can still recite large parts of it.

Don

1 comment:

Curtis Copeland said...

Tolkien was such an inspiring writer. I have read the LOTR trilogy 3 times.

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!