Daily GUIDE-ance:

Friday, October 22, 2010

The Letter Double You

I can't sleep and here is why: (Get it?! Why!?- of course you don't but you will in a minute)

Consider "W".

It's pronounced "double you". Note how the "w" sound never appears in the letter's name. Doesn't that bother you? (get it? YOU)

Now think about "Y".

Pronounced "Why". See- the "wuh" sound is in the letter "Y", but not in "W". It would make just as much sense to pronounce "W" as "why" as it does to pronounce "Y" as "why". WHY is that? (I'm on a roll!)

Most of the alphabet makes sense. Lieing in bed just now I have worked out that alot (8 or so) of the letters end in the "eee" sound: BCDEGPTVZ

Many of the others (5) start with the "eh" sound: FLMNS

Then there's the end-in-"ay"-sounds letters (only 2): JK

And the vowels. They mostly make sense, except for "U":
Why do you say the y sound in "U"? Shouldn't we just say "uh" instead?

So: 8 "eee"s +5 "eh"s+2 "ay"s+5vowels=20, leaving 6 anomalies: HQRW and Y.

H: Aich. How'd that ch sound get in there?
Q: cue. Should be pronounced "Queeee", to make it one of the "eee"s.
R: arr. makes sense basically, although it'd be more uniform if it was errrr along with eff, el, em, en and es.

So. Now sing with me the corrected alphabet:

Ay Bee -- frickin-- "See" makes no sense either! I did not see that until now. (har har!!!)ok: starting over:

Ay Bee Kee (frick, why do we even have that stupid letter, if it doesn't have it's own sound?! Out with it! 25 and counting!)

Sing along aloud now:

Ay Bee Dee Eee ef Gee eh
I Jay Kay el em en Oh Pee Quee er es
Tee uh Vee
(bahahah you said Oh, Pee! Queeers TV!)
Wee Ex Yi and Zee.

Sounds better, no?

Now I understand why the double you is pronounced that way. When you Look at it instead of Listen to it it looks a little bit like two "U"-s, side by side. UU, W.

So why not do the WHOLE alphabet that way?

Sideways Bag
Big Smile
Wounded ant
Upper fangs
Half fangs
Diving board
Tongue Piercing
Look down
Lower Fangs
Both ways

Sunday, October 17, 2010

This Week's Acquisitions

After Jonni and I had finished reading the Great Brain books, and I was utterly sick of reading them out loud, Jonni took to reading them on her own.

These books are not all that easy to find. I believe they are possibly out of print. It took me a couple years, literally, of rooting though used book stores, trash cans, Jawa transport vehicles, Goodwills, etc before I could amass all 8 in paperback. Even then, in the end I was forced to buy the 8th (and rarest) book of the series online. (I am rich and could afford to buy them the normal way, but that takes all the fun out of it for me.)

Well, it took Jonni a couple of weeks, literally, to trash the bindings on most of my cautiously horded Great Brains. Bah!

So, it was a thrill, when she and me were at the local library this week and found ALL EIGHT OF THEM, in hardback, good condition for 50 cents each! We wasted no time accelerating from sight to ownership. Mine! all Mine! bwahahahaha! Suckers!

Also this week, I bought Carl Sagan's Cosmos, orginally $35 US back in 1980. Seventy-five cents, lightly used. heheheh.

Snagged a couple more Asimov books from the Foundation series too, for a quarter or so. Think I have all of them now.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

I watched Clash of the Titans the other day

and boy did it suck! If a script that weak can get funding, I definitely should become a screen writer.

Allow me to now air a thought: Did anyone else who saw this thing think that somebody on the committee for this flick have an axe to grind? Specifically kind of a "anti-theist" axe? The whole point of the movie was about how evil the Gods are and how everyone naturally hates them. This wouldn't bother me at all, except that the whole movie seemed to assume that this was an obvious point that didn't need any explaining. There was almost no explanation of what exactly it was that the gods were up to that had everyone so ticked off. Believe me, I'm all down with a plot that involves a few evil gods. I'm a polytheistic cult member with gamer tendencies. But the story ought to define what makes the gods evil, other than just the fact that they exist. I dunno if I would have picked up on this vibe so much if I hadn't spent so much time on my religious debate forum knocking around with angry athiests and getting to know their beefs against God so well.

After a few days to think about it, I have decided that I am not crazy to think this. Any thoughts?
Trent and I's correspondence game is over:

You can express you sympathy at trent.sever@myldsmail.net