Anguish Languish is a homophonic language created by Howard Chance to show how ridiculous the English Language can be. It uses real words that sound similar to the intended words -- but are not the correct word. So Anguish Languish are two real words that sound like English Language but are not. His famous nursery rhymes were published in the 50's. Example: Ladle rat rotten hut. You figure it out.
Why the reference? Because I can not spell very well. I am probably the worse speller I have ever known. And I blame it in part on the English Language.The general attitude among good spellers about bad spellers is that -- they are low class (what ever that means) -- they are not well educated -- they are lazy -- they have a low IQ -- and a few other low blows. But I am none of these. So why do I have such a problem with the entanglement of all these lovely little letters to conform to what the dictionary believes to be the proper arrangement to spell a certain word? Why can't I spell?
During my freshman year of college at Indiana State, myself and three or four other guys (Are guys worse spellers than women?) were faced with the possibility of flunking freshman English because we all flunked the required spelling tests. Oh yes -- we all knew how to diagram a sentence and how to tell a noun from a verb. We were good English students -- but we had "cantspellitis." So the Professor -- bless his heart -- with considerable exasperation, wrote ten or twelve words on the blackboard (no whiteboards back then) and told our little group to "Memorize these damn words!" He erased the words and told us in no uncertain terms to "Write the damn words down before you forget them!" We did and we all passed freshman English.
OK. Back to this ridiculous, complicated English Language. Lets start with the alphabet. B is a good example. Bee(honey) --Bea (Aunt Bea) -- Be(still) -- Beebe(gun) -- spelling Bee. Maybe you can think of some more. How about C? See(eyes) -- Sea (ocean) -- Seesaw (teeter totter) -- Si' (Senior). And that is just a couple of letters. Homonyms are pretty confusing. Read(today) read(yesterday). Bass(fish), bass(guitar). Refuse(won't do it), refuse(trash), re-fuse (put in new fuses). Hundreds more -- you know the drill. It must be a real chore to learn English with all the various different sounds for just one letter. It's tough to speak, let alone spell the Kings English we had thrust upon us. No wonder I can't spell.
I realize that most of my career has been "reading" commercials or news on radio or TV and not caring or needing to be concerned about spelling. After all, it wasn't a newspaper. As long as it sounded OK, I could spit out the words like a motor mouth whether they were spelled correctly or not. But it seems that we have all come back to writing to each other these days on phones and computers rather than speaking so much So I better get my act together and get with the program. What were some of the rules? E before I or was it I before E-- then what? -- I can't remember. I do know this. I know the best invention so far in this 21st century is one I use numerous times each day and many times on this blog -- I couldn't do without it! It is called the spell checker!
From the heart of Olaf Hart ....
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