Oops, I should have typed “El”. Freudian slip or something…
I assumed it translated as “The dog from (the city of) San Ramon doesn’t have a tail”, but either way it held no significance to my grandfather outside of being a way to practice unfamiliar sounds.
I’m guessing that’s either directly or indirectly how Alto’s grandfather got hold of his own phrase.
Yes, that makes sense in retrospect.
The guy was Germanic–to him, “ch”, when he sees it in print, pronounces itself with that distinctive “ach” or “ich” sound. But this is English. The “ch” of English is different–how to remember it? Aha, do it like the “g” in “original” or “aboriginal”–i.e.,
“Ilge, where’s your lunge”
Now you got that English “ch” down, hey!
“Ilch, where’s your lunch?
In the original aboriginal, it takes a soft sound of ‘g.’”
This has the sound and cadence of a number of old vaudeville routines I have heard. The dialog is strange, the rhythm is straight from the stage. Say it out loud, & you’ll see what I mean. You can almost put it to music.
I asked my own grandfather about this, a German immigrant who came over after World War I. He confirms that this is, indeed, one of those phrases he was taught in grade school when learning English. It was an easy-to-remember way to pronounce the “ch” sound in proper English.
When learning Spanish, our teacher used “Rápida ruedan las ruedas del carro encargado de azúcar en el ferrocarríl.” I occasionally say that aloud, to everyone’s confusion.
Great, thanks.
It does seem plausible, because another one of his sayings was “Round and round the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran,” which certainly sounds like a way to practice R’s.
And we have another demostration of why the Straight Dope is the greatest web site ever. Totally obscure question, took some back and forth to figure out even what was being asked, and yet an answer is found to something Alto has wondered about most of her life. Fantastic.
I guess we should have asked Alto if her grandpa had any other strange sayings. That would have saved some confusion. I love to read these types of threads to see how they come to a conclusion. Nice work dopers!
Very cool!
OK - my Norweigan grampy from Minnesota, ya, would say,
“I see said the blindman as he took his hammer and saw.”
I agree, it is pretty cool. I didn’t honestly expect to get anywhere–it seemed like the kind of question that probably didn’t have an answer–but I figured it was worth trying. I guess it was.