# Speak to me using English **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 11, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397 "2012-09-11T14:16:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/21 "2012-09-11T23:06:56Z")
Huh? ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/22 "2012-09-11T23:14:05Z")
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning! Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned, geong in geardum, þone god sende folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat þe hie ær drugon aldorlease lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea, wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf; Beowulf wæs breme (blæd wide sprang), Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/23 "2012-09-12T00:05:44Z")
English, motherfucker, I speak it! Colorless green ideas sleep furiously Hey, you know there’s other Old English books besides Beowulf! I’ll do Middle English: This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart, As greet as it had been a thonder-dent, That with the strook he was almoost yblent; And he was redy with his iren hoot, And Nicholas amydde the ers he smoot. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/24 "2012-09-12T02:57:52Z")
I have a heart, I swear I do But just not, baby, when it comes to you I get so hungry when you say you love me Hush if you know what’s good for you I think you’re hot, I think you’re cool You’re the kind of guy I’d stalk in school But now that I’m famous You’re up my anus Now I’m going to eat you, fool! ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/25 "2012-09-12T03:00:10Z")
I just julienned my haricot verts. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/26 "2012-09-12T03:39:55Z")
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/27 "2012-09-12T03:44:31Z")
If one were to speak proper English, to whom would one speak it? ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/28 "2012-09-12T05:42:55Z")
What’s all this, then? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/29 "2012-09-12T10:20:55Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > [Manuel] I speak Eng-lish. I learn it from a book." [/Manuel] Makes no sense, would be en-glish. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/30 "2012-09-12T14:29:30Z")
Speak to me only in quotes from “Quest for Fire” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/31 "2012-09-12T14:33:20Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Makes no sense, would be en-glish. Well, that’s how he says it. For the record, he’s played by an Englishman who’s only pretending to be from Barcelona. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/32 "2012-09-12T14:41:43Z")
Yeah, that’s what I was talking about: it’s clearly an Anglo, because a Hispanic would not break the syllables there. Neither Spanish nor Catalan (since the character is from BCN) have -ng as a possible end-of-syllable group; gl- as a possible start-of-syllable group, yes (for example in _in-glés_ and _an-glès_, the respective words for English). ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/33 "2012-09-12T17:18:07Z")
Prisencolinensinainciusol…oll right! ---
**Author:** ![Zyanthia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Zyanthia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyanthia)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/34 "2012-09-12T17:33:26Z")
I noticed you allow poetry, but what about poultry? Paltry poultry poetry, perhaps pertaining to pullets, performed by pregnant penguins? Which makes me think of a silly question: if the abdominal signs of being pregnant is now referred to as a baby bump, is the proper term for the waddle the “pregger swagger”? ---
**Author:** ![Didact\_Lectorem777](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@Didact\_Lectorem777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didact_Lectorem777)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/35 "2012-10-03T23:56:16Z")
Through crimson stars and silent stars and great tumbling nebulae like oceans set on fire. Through empires of glass and civilizations pf pure thought. And a whole wonderful terrible universe full of impossibilites. ~Doctor the Eleventh ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/36 "2012-10-04T00:48:44Z")
“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; - but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.” The Liberator, Vol 1 William Lloyd Garrison ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/37 "2012-10-04T05:02:58Z")
Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till’s guts. But, as they say, money isn’t everything. - Alex ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/38 "2012-10-04T12:43:39Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > me fail english? that’s unpossible. English? Who needs that! I’m never going to England. \*Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. \* ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/39 "2012-10-05T01:41:26Z")
One, two! One, two! and through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. ---
**Author:** ![Luk3112](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a9adbd/32.png) [@Luk3112](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luk3112)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397/40 "2012-10-22T13:05:15Z")
NEIN! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speak-to-me-using-english/634397.md?page=3)