Posted on 12/04/2006 12:22:50 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
"Oddly enough, I was wondering about that just a few days ago...I suppose he then went on to discuss long S's that look like lower-case Fs?"
Possibly. But I had already seen those in the writings of the Founding Fathers.
Clipping, cutting slivers of silver or gold from the King's money.
Coyning=coining, counterfeiting.
Swamp gas...
Yes, the coinage was actual Gold and Silver.
I hope you have a long drop latrine...
And funkle...
The English were kind and just hanged counterfeiters.
The Germans boiled them in lead, dipping them in an inch at a time.
The French usually broke them on the wheel.
Here are two that even an Anglophone can say.
Ye Olde Frenche Alliterative Worde Playe #1:
Si six scies scient six cigares, six-cent-six scies scient six-cent-six cigares.
It means "If six saws saw six cigars, six-hundred six saws saw six-hundred six cigars", but the fun part is the pronunciation. Written out in English (or Spanish, "si"), what it sounds like is: SI SI SI SI SI SIGAR, SI SAHN SI SI SI SI SAHN SI SIGAR. The game is that si, six, scies and scient are all pronounced identically: "Si".
Ye Olde French Alliterative Worde Playe #2:
Ton tonton ton ton tonton. Ton tonton, ton tonton ton.
It means "Your uncle plays (lit. 'sounds') your toy. Your toy, your uncle sounds."
Ye Final Olde Frenche Worde Playe:
Everyone has heard Descartes' famous line:
"Je pense, donc je suis." - I think, therefore I am.
Never content to leave edifices of marble unmocked, the average Frechman can be heard saying, on a hot day:
"Je panse, donc je m'essui." - I sweat, therefore I wipe.
The trick is that it's pronounced the same, except for the "m'eh" before the "suis".
Well, that explains why I'm going broke shaving the edges off my pennies & nickels...
Sorry, it's too much fun to let go (when does one get to share French tounguetwisters other than in the context of deaths from the wee folk)?
The classic French "Peter Piper" equivalent is about hunting:
Un chasseur sachant chasser bien doit savoir chasser sans son chien.
(A hunter who knows how to hunt well ought to know how to hunt without his dog.)
A Japanese farmer owned a horse and a Chinese neighbor had a cow.
The Japanese accused the Chinaman of stealing his horse's feed, and received the following reply:
"Horse no can kaukau cow kaukau. Cow kaukau cow kaukau."
lol - I have told people in Spanish numerous timed that I am pragnant [embarrassed] or married [tired] after a long day's travel.
Great work above. Languages are fascinating things! My great-uncle, a JAG lawyer, had books and books on the history of language and the development of modern English. I did a couple of projects in college using his library and found it amazing how things are interconnected and nuanced [in a non-Kerry way] to the tongues we use today. I wish I had studied at an earlier age to become fluent in more than one!
Cool info ping!
Indeed.
The linguistics professor was making a point about languages to his sophomore class, and he concluded with a flourish: "And so I have demonstrated that in many languages, the single negative is used to indicate negation, while in many others - although certainly not in the English! - the double negative is used to indicate negation. However, intensive studies of all of the world's languages have conclusively demonstrated that in no language has a double positive ever been used to express negation."
Then a bored student in the back of the hall said "Yeah. Right."
IIRC, ol' Walt left that scene on the cutting room floor when he made Fantasia.
Especially in light of this, you would tend to think he was a rather...Cavalier fellow:
By the Parsons bull: 2
Well,
between the parson and the Lamplugh's, folks seemed to be droppin' left and right....
and if Mrs. Lamplugh had anything to do with making the October (beer) then they were a hazzard to the community!
Anyone know what this one means??
* On a five bar gate, stag hunters: 4
THIS one I get, and I think it's a hoot!
* Broke a vein in bawling for a knight of ye shire: 1
My sense is that they hanged four men on a fence for poaching stags.
Alternatively, they all crashed and died in a hunting accident. Or maybe four separate accidents jumping over something.
Or maybe one guy died four times and became a will o' the wisp.
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