[hijack]
In my high school “Health” class we had a whole unit on self-esteem. For one assignment, we had to list “Things we can do to make ourselves happy when we’re feeling sad.” I wrote the first item on my list in mirror writing. Obviously I can’t type it with the individual letters flipped but it was basically:
.srehcaet ym esufnoc ot sdrawkcab sgniht etirw nac I
I found out later that my Health teacher had actually had a meeting with my English teacher to ask if I often had these difficulties with my writing.
[/hijack]
I think some folks are confusing what I think would be considered “proper” pig latin from the colloquial and regional versions. For example, proper pig latin would be
Yes. French has Verlan, wherein the syllables of words are reversed. An example is the French word for backwards, l’envers. Reversed, it’s pronounced verlan. (Hence the name…)
“Je m’appelle Stephen” would probably be something like “Je pelma vensti”.
In Swedish, we have rövarspråket (bandit language). The vowels stay the same but after each consonant you add an o and then that consonant again. So “Sweden” would become “Soswowedodenon”.
I used it mainly as a way to ask my mother for goglolasossos (glass=ice cream) without my little brother understanding what I was up to.
Don’t breathe too easy - the statement “the game never seemed to catch on in British countries” doesn’t ring true for me.
Perhaps it wasn’t quite so popular, or maybe I’m part of an Americanophile anomaly, but I grew up speaking it* (and several variants**) with many schoolfriends in Oxfordshire, England, as did my father and his schoolfriends a generation before in London. My mother could also speak it.
In fact, according to Dad, he and a friend were speaking it on the London tube once in the early 1960s, and a rather pompous gentleman leant over to them and asked “Excuse me, are you speaking Swahili?” They replied in the affirmative.
*The variation to the rules in your report are that if a word begins with a vowel, then the letter “n” is added at the end: e.g. “added” => “addednay”; also polysyllabic words are broken down into chunks to make them less comprehensible - e.g “polysyllabic” => “olypay yllabicsay”.
**E.g. the language known as “hulfunting” = split the first syllable and insert the letters “lf” into it. “Goose” => “Goolfoose” (avoid saying the word “duck” in polite company). Also “bubble” where only the first part of the first syllable is used, and the entire rest of the word is replaced with “bble”. Thus “Hello there” => “Hebble thebble”. This is very tough to comprehend, and requires a knowledge of context, clearly!
There was a case in Baltimore a few years back where some big time drug dealer was being prosecuted. Well, they were putting together some wire-tapped conversations of his and he and his cronies were doing that with -ergy.
So “Go have a talk with him” would be “Gergy hergy a tergy wergy hergy”.
Again, I think there was a lot of contextual understanding, and nicknames, which made the speech less ambiguous.
Don’t forget the prevalent “Snoop talk” either.
“Fo’ shizzle my nizzle.”
or . . .
“Snoop Dogg in the motherfuckin’ hizz-ouse.”
“H to the Izzo V to the Izzay” (H.O.V.A.)
They were at least doing that in '91 when Snoop Dogg’s “Doggystyle” came out, and probably before then, and its still around.
I can’t remember if it was on “The Chronic”, which pre-dated “Doggystyle”, or any other CDs and/or movies pre-dating it.
Do we have a policy on whether to open multiple threads on the same report? Oh well, I think this is tidier.
In the pig-latin report:
Is “i.e.” correct there in your opinion? I would have used “for example” or “e.g.”, since while in this case we’re taking that specific word, he does say “In pig Latin, one takes a word”, which obviously isn’t ALWAYS “bibliophage”.
I wouldn’t bring it up, but (1) we’re fighting ignorance here, Cecil & SDSTAFF normally set the best example and (2) I’m if people ever mix up “eg” and “ie” WHY? HOW? Do you muddle up “me” and “am” and all other two letter words?
No competition from rhyming slang (“porridge” = “porridge pail” = “jail”, or to take one of the very, very few ones that crossed the Atlantic, “raspberry” = “raspberry tart” = “fart”) or backslang (“yob” = “boy”)?
I failed Latin in high school. My teacher, hereafter referred to as the old biddy, would call roll, give us an asssignment, and shuffle off, not to be seen again until the bell rang at the end of class. (Some say she drank, but I won’t go that far)
This column was edited by Little Ed at the last minute, through no fault of his own. He was probably trying to get the big things right. I think he did. But, thank Cecil, you can always blame your editor.
I never even took latin… Thanks for responding. No worries, we all make mistakes. I just wonder if we can change the archive, just in case it puzzles anyone else.
Unfortunately, Staff Reports are subject to far more human error than are Cecil’s Columns – aside from the proofreading and editing, which are done by mortals, the Staff Reports themselves are written by the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board and guest contributors, which means they are subject to author’s errors as well.
Fortunately, Staff Reports are not published anywhere except for our online site, and hence corrections are possible. Thanks for finding that one!
It would have been even better if anyone bothered to notice that I made the same comment on the same subject matter in the same thread two days ago :mad:
