Reg lexicographical Shock Army liberates mobe
ICT confirmed dead amid ruins of linguistic conservatism
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A Vulture Central lexicographical Shock Army spokesman this morning confirmed combined forces of inevitability and good sense had liberated mobe and lappy from the axis of linguistic conservatism which had only too recently threatened English with hideous fossilisation. Standing in the burning ruins of grammatical common decency, he declared: "I dunno, prolly same old forever, innit, eh?"
Amid scenes of bitter fighting, troops of the elite Middle Englander division - notorious for its habit of punishing misuse of the word "decimate" by selecting a random village and "reducing" it by exactly one tenth - pitched a desperate last-ditch stand against El Reg's determined "Boffin Battalion", which deployed carelessly-improvised adjectives as adverbs in vicious street-to-street fighting for control of the English language.
One combatant, who led the final assault on the key DailyMailStag, admitted later: "Yeah, well, like, we went real careful, but then there's this one bloke down in a cellar and he's shouting like, 'We will surrender but only if you guarantee the proper use of the apostrophe during the negotiations,' so we're like fuck that and we throw in a few grenades' and a couple of greengrocers apostrofes for good measure."
By 10am, advance units of the Geezer Grenadiers had fought their way to within 100 metres of the last bastion of Mother English, where ICT and his mistress Eva Aspirated-Wh w(h)ere already making plans to swallow prussic acid, thereby denying the "forces of darkness" the satisfaction of hanging them along with thousands of participles already left dangling by the uneducated masses. But then news came across the front lines of a possible surrender deal.
ICT's sinister Strategy Boutique had held several controversial terms - including mobe and lappy - hostage with a view to an eventual cross onto the American side of the front line. While viewing the "Yanks" as linguistic barbarians who'd "gotten way ahead of themselves", they were prepared to deprive their children of the odd extraneous "u" as an alternative to the nightmare possibility in which their offspring lost the ability to pronounce the "tt" in "butter".
In the end, negotiations literally broke down on the use of "literally", with neither side able to agree a compromise as to how may "literallys" an Englishman might use during once sentence. The failure was later described as "literally a disaster".
And it was - literally. The onslaught which followed claimed an estimated 10,000 archaic terms, deployed in desperation by ICT's rapidly-formed Volksterm, armed only with a small pocket grammar of proper English and the motto "Better dead than brown bread".
The rest is now history. ICT's lifeless body was soon discovered burnt to a crisp, but described by a Reg pathologist as "immediately recognisable by the utterly useless extra letter he'd added to a hitherto perfectly serviceable acronym".
Vulture Central forces quickly found mobe and lappy huddled together in a prison cellar, having apparently been subjected to the most hideous humiliation including having to wear the "Gyles Brandreth" armband of shame - denoting their non-Anglo-Saxon origins.
Mobe told his liberators: "Yeah, sweet, give us a mobe. I've just got to text the missus." ®
COMMENTS
Lobster Lobster Lobster Lobster
Did no-one notice the story was posted at nearly half-past midnight? Looks like an alcohol-fueled piece of inspiration post-pub to me :-)
Disappointing to see that a democratic vote by the readership on the usage of such vocabulary is being flaunted now. Shame on you all - you'll be introducing El Reg id cards soon, to be examined by the Volkssturm with steely gaze before being told "Your papers.... are not in order".
Any news from the front?
I had hoped that Lynne Truss might be missing in action or captured by the Greengrocers Rifle's.
@umacf24
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.
From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with "darky."
Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,
Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it."
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.
Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess--it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation--think of psyche--!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing "groats" and saying "grits"?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with "enough"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup."
My advice is--give it up!
I was always under the impression that this was GBS' (George Bernard-Shaw) work, but the first Google search finds some German bloke: G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946
If you want, there's plenty more where that came from..
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