Sadness: Not Middle English after all

I have always been something of a language fiend And it has always interested me how words from older forms of English (Old English and Middle English) that no longer form part of Modern English can still be found in some dialectical forms of English -- particularly in Scots. The Scots in fact have a whole consonant (the guttural in "Loch") that is lost to modern English.

I was once, for instance, talking to a lady from the English Midlands and she described someone as "nesh" (meaning sickly, weak). I of course looked it up and found that it came straight from Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Most pleasing.

American speech also preserves some older forms (the pronunciation of the letter 'r', for instance) so I was quite excited to see the following sentence in Taranto: "this dumb-ass redneck from Alabama cleped it". I immediately recognized "cleped" as a Middle English word so felt quite excited to see such a survival in Alabama.

On digging deeper, however, I found that the writer was in fact referring only to the College Level Examination Program. What a disappointment.

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ELSEWHERE

Not amazing: "The Department of Homeland Security (no less) cannot even keep its own email service secure! Trust your government to protect you?? Better get a gun, maybe several.

Have a look here at the Islamic losers who fancied that they could take over the U.S. government.

Terrorist Bill of Rights: "This week, House Democrats say they plan to hold hearings on a misguided bill that would grant habeas corpus rights to terrorist detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The proposal would allow terrorists to publicly challenge their status as detainees in the U.S. court system, fracturing the cohesive structure already in place to ensure that highly dangerous suspects are held and processed in a secure and timely fashion. House Republican leaders are furious that Democrats are seeking to give unprecedented legal protections to terrorists, calling the measure a "terrorist bill of rights." The Republicans are justified in protesting the plan that would give special rights to terrorists - rights not afforded to our own men and women in the armed services serving overseas"

A Leftist comment on a washed up Pelosi: "If there was any doubt before, which there wasn't, it's gone now. Watching Nancy Pelosi on The View yesterday morning provided the final proof that the backbone of the House is only as strong as its speaker. Her body language said it all. There she sat in the center of the table, sandwiched between Elizabeth Hasselbeck and the "Is the world flat? I don't know" lady, looking anxious and devoid of stately confidence. She could barely look in the eyes of America's Favorite True Believer on her left, who immediately smelled fear and pounced on her prey. "If the violence in Iraq had gone up," she started in (I'm paraphrasing), "you would be insisting that the surge was a failure. Now that the reports say it's gone down drastically, aren't you willing to admit that the surge is a success?" So what does Pelosi do? ... she looks somewhere in Hasselbeck's general direction and squeaks meekly, "But that's still a lot of deaths." (I'm not paraphrasing). She then quickly changes the subject"

Where Have All the Peaceniks Gone?: "Three days ago we saw the first pictures of Burmese villages being destroyed. We have learned about the massacres of monks and other civilians peacefully protesting in Myanmar. British PM Gordon Brown said that "the death toll in the Myanmar crackdown to be `far greater' than has so far been reported." That's at least three whole 24-hour news cycles, plenty of time to start a storm of protest. Where is the BBC? The Guardian? Der Spiegel? Der New York Times? Where are all the peaceniks of the Left? Mother Sheehan, where art thou? As far as I can tell, Burma's fascist massacres of peaceful Buddhist monks has not yet led to a peep from our self-proclaimed peaceniks. Where are they?"

Wackjob Dems Lose - Senate Intel Bill Passes: "The Senate has scrapped its bid to obtain the archive of daily intelligence briefings given to the president on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. That request was among several controversial provisions dropped from an intelligence bill, leading to the measure's unanimous Senate passage Wednesday. The provision sought to give the Senate and House intelligence committees access to all presidential daily briefs between 1997 and 2003 that referred to Iraq _ an attempt to determine whether the White House mischaracterized intelligence prior to the war. Senate Republicans objected, saying the documents had already been reviewed by an independent commission, according to a congressional official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The final version of the bill also dropped a requirement that the director of national intelligence conduct an assessment of the effects of global climate change on national security. The overall legislation would give Congress' approval for the whole range of intelligence programs over the coming year, including spy satellites and eavesdropping, human spying and battlefield collection, along with recommended spending levels."

An atheist who believes -- in Jewish conspiracy theory!: "A renowned atheist cited the "Jewish lobby" as a model for his campaign to promote atheism in the United States. Richard Dawkins said he wanted to gain the same kind of influence as the Jewish lobby, saying it "monopolizes" U.S. foreign policy. "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see," Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist who advocates atheism, told the Guardian newspaper. "So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." Dawkins, an Oxford professor who wrote the best-seller "The God Delusion," told the Guardian that he wants to organize American atheists to counter the influence of religious groups." [For someone as hostile as Dawkins it does figure. The man is just a hater].

Chaliapin: Is there any greater work of art than Feodor Chaliapin's rendition of the "Twofold Litany of St. John Chrysostom"? There is a tiny excerpt from it here. Although I am an atheist, I undoubtedly have strong religious instincts and I am very pleased about that. It means that I can relate to some of the most profound of human experiences. The loss is great for those who cannot.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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