French Pronunciation and the 27th letter of the alphabet.

William the Conqueror. 

Further to a post about France I'm exploring something about the pronunciation here in the UK and how it seems to be changing with the American influence and may be just another Americanism.

You see there's a very strange thing that happens here in the UK; it used to happen when we lived in America, but here there's a generation of people who take words that we have used all our lives, and used them correctly in the most part, and tell us that we are saying them wrongly.

In America we were always told to pronounce taco as tarko – as with everything else American it had to be the long 'A' – the Mexicans, of course pronounced it the same as us and how it is spelt – taco. The T A C rhyming with back.

Why would the Americans purposely mispronounce a word they hear the Spanish speaking inhabitants say every day? 

To annoy them?

In America, for example, they are, after only 250 years of existence, still progressing with their language. They have their own dictionary with American spelling which is okay for them but a bit of a pain in the arse for us with most of our computers having American spell checks and we have to ask ourselves, a lot of the time, why we have a red line under some of the words. 

If I look at my page now I can see them – but you won't. Back there arse has a red line underneath.

So best of luck to them but stop making computers with American default as the spell check.

I love spell checks – they are a boost to anyone who has to write. At school I would use the words I could spell instead of the better words I couldn't because marks would be docked for each spelling mistake. What would Shakespeare have done if he had to spell correctly as his spelling was reputed to be erratic?

The American language is taken from English and being turned slowly but surely into American. The difference between their kind of English and the English spoken in the UK is that English here is established. It is made up of words from other languages and English is a terrible whore; it will get in to bed with any language and Anglicises the new words.

The American language doesn't – in the UK Maurice, e.g. is pronounced Morris, in America it's MaurEEEse. 

Because the name came from France. 

But you look it up on dictionary.com the verbal pronunciation, even in a slight America accent, is pronounced as Maurise – same as the UK.

If you can find The Bee Gees on YouTube making an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, Maurice Gibb introduces himself to 'Big Ed' with the UK pronunciation and Big Ed says it both ways in confusion - as if the old fascist was translating for the good people of America.

The one thing the Americans have Americanised is the pronunciation of Boulevard – they say Bullavard and not the French way.

An example of the American confusion is seen in Starbucks – they just couldn't think of which language to use so for the sizes you have small in English, medium in Spanish and large in Italian: it's tall, grandé and venti. They can't use the word 'small' as it is an American company and nothing is small to the Americans so they use 'tall;' then to Spanish for the medium 'grandé' which actually means big or large; and then venti for the large size and what does venti mean? Twenty as it's a twenty ounce drink. They could have used 'pint' but a pint in America is only 16 ounces.

But why do the English refuse to pronounce French words?

Maybe the same reason the Spanish refuse to pronounce Portuguese Spanish words the Portuguese way. The Portuguese use the 'J' in José for example, and the Spanish don't; why? Because it is a Spanish name.

England was invaded once (unless you count William of Orange who sneaked in by marrying the King's daughter) by France.

1066 the Battle of Hastings by William the Conquerer who brought the French language with him – well a kind of Normandy language.

The language of kings, French, prevailed in England right up to Henry V – he was the first king to write in English, his father was the first King to actually speak English. By the end of the 15^th century French became a second language or a language of the elite and slowly but surely from the bottom up English took over and any French pronunciation went out the door.

But what's happening now? The American influence in language has spread to Britain. Instead of going in to a shop and saying 'could I have' or 'may I have ' the American phrase is used 'can I get' – I mean the obvious answer is 'yes; get out.' - but I jest.

But what does that have to do with the price of fish?

The British are being influenced by American phrases and pronunciation and that goes for the way they (the Americans) pronounce all their foreign words too.

In America they do not pronounce the 'T' in fillet or valet but they do in billet. Neither of us pronounce it in ballet but the Americans say ballay and the English say bally; just not to use that tiny bit of a French accent.

But the Americans are progressing – Boulevard and Billet look promising!

So we will have to be told off by the young for not attempting to sound as if we are about to cough when we say 'humus' and have our fingers wrapped when we ask for duck confit and pronounce the final 't' – but you know something we don't pronounce it if we ask for confit de canard because that is French and we don't want to offend the pedants.

And by the way – the 27^th letter of the alphabet used to be & - yes the ampersand; it was abandoned maybe before America was even writing.

This from Wikipedia

It was also common practice to add the "&" sign at the end of the alphabet as if it were the 27th letter, pronounced as the Latin et or later in English as and. As a result, the recitation of the alphabet would end in "X, Y, Z, and per se and"

and this from Dictionary.com 

n.

1837, contraction of and per se and, meaning "(the character) '&' by itself is 'and' " (a hybrid phrase, partly in Latin, partly in English). The symbol is based on the Latin word et "and," and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs ( ligatures), attested in Pompeiian graffiti, but not (as sometimes stated) from the Tironian Notes, which was a different form of shorthand, probably invented by Cicero's companion Marcus Tullius Tiro, which used a different symbol, something like a reversed capital gamma, to indicate et.

This Tironian symbol was maintained by some medieval scribes, includingAnglo-Saxon chroniclers, who sprinkled their works with a symbol like anumeral 7 to indicate the word and. In old schoolbooks the ampersand wasprinted at the end of the alphabet and thus by 1880s had acquired a slangsense of "posterior, rear end, hindquarters."

I hope that is quite clear!!!

Me in my French jacket

At Trinity College, Dublin.

Because the comment doesn't hyper text I'll leave my comment here; because I can.

Here's a little bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nAnT3PASak

God Save Our . . .

There's Barry . . 

Isn't it a bit unfair to expect an atheist to sing the British National Anthem; the piece starts off with God Save Our Gracious Queen.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party and brother of another nut job, Piers, was accused recently of not singing the words to the anthem at a do, or even mouthing to them; well let me tell you I have been in so many gatherings, including football matches, where nobody has sung the words – or even mouthed them.

But what a national anthem aye? Where does it come from, I wondered so I looked? 

For a start off it's not the English National Anthem at all; in the Commonwealth Games, Ireland play Danny Boy, Wales have Land of my Fathers and Scotland used to have Scotland the Brave – I say used to have as they changed the Scots to Flower of Scotland in the 1990s.

So where does that leave England? They can't have God Save the Queen as that is the anthem for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – the UK.

The automatic one became Land of Hope and Glory which is Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1, but that was changed to Jerusalem which is a tune written by William Parry to William Blake's poem  – I suppose the former, Land of Hope and Glory, was a bit jingoistic and on a par with the French anthem which I wrote about a couple of posts ago.

One of the greatest nights, for me, was when Barry McGuigan, the former World Featherweight Boxing Champion, defended his European Title in Belfast and something went wrong with the sound system so Barry's dad, a professional singer, got up and sang Danny Boy – not a dry eye in the house including ours.

When his dad died, Barry didn't want to box again as he said he had to no reason to return to the ring as he only ever boxed for his father. He did, eventually, make a comeback winning a few more fights before retiring right after a technical knockout in Round Two of a fight when his eye was gashed open making it impossible for the fight to continue.

There's another little thing about God Save Our Whatever – as it depends on whether there's a king or queen – during the bridge before the line 'send her victorious' a line, NO SURRENDER, is inserted at English football matches especially in the so called Northern Ireland where it is a Loyalist chant; it's also associated with the white supremacist movement Combat 18 of which that is all I will say apart from where the '18' came from: the first letter of the alphabet is A and the eighth is H making the initials AH – and you know who that was.

By the way, the Bridge is usually used in music to let you know when something is coming like a return to the verse; the bridge in this piece is da da da da da da Send her etc and I fail to see how they can sing 4 syllables when 6 are needed - but there we are.

Sweet Relief: A Brief History of my Bladder.

Penis substitute.

I was listening to Radio 4's Front Row; a good nightly magazine programme about the arts with reviews of theatre, film, literature, TV etc. There were a couple of poets reciting some of their work, which seemed to be a put down of men, and how they find it embarrassing greeting each other in the gym and other masculine places; how they find it hard not to show their masculinity off and things like that. Believe me I've seen it and it spills over into pubs when the hard man can drink the most and is the biggest glutton in the cafe. A great driver and absolutely marvelous in bed.

No man will admit to being a bad driver or being terrible in bed – what do you want here an admission from me?

No chance; I don't drive any more in any case; you don't need to in London.

The poetry wasn't that bad, and I didn't expect it to rhyme, but I like it to have a certain kind of rhythm – a bit like mine (The Man With the Pen) – but I would say that wouldn't I?

Their conversation moved on to pornographic poetry and then back to the macho thing again and how wonderful it is to stand in the open and take a pee; standing with your back arched and just letting everything just piss out.

It kind of reminded me of my life which appears to be full of various pisses I needed to do over the years which were emergencies.

As a young child my mother would take me to the market in the centre of Birmingham, the rag alley, and I hated it; it was always cold and I invariably wanted to go to the loo.

'Mammy I want a wee' I would say.

'Ah come on' she'd say 'tie a knot in it.' 
And as I'd been telling her about my girl friend at school, she would say 'I wish she was here now; I'd tell her to come and take this piss tank home.'

My mother had a wonderful turn of phrase; I was only about 5 years old.

One time at school my teacher was giving me a reading lesson and my desk was right at the front; she was sitting at the other side of it.

The archetype school mistress with hair tied tight in a bun and a name which suited her, Miss Prime.

I really wanted a wee but she wouldn't let me go: 'you should have gone at play time' she said.

'I did go'

'No you didn't; now read.'

I could feel little drops falling down my leg and the more I read the wetter my underwear became.

'You can go' she said 'but you'll stay in at lunch time till you've read the page.'

We were due to go to lunch at midday and it was 11:45; oh how could I hold it that long but I didn't want to stay inl I wanted to go home to my mother.

So I carried on reading. I would read a bit, pee a bit. I'd look at the teacher and the old sadist would enjoy seeing me sweat and strain - did she think I was pretending?

Eventually the bell went and we broke for lunch; I ran to the loo and emptied my bladder standing there like a locomotive getting rid of steam.

When I got home my mother noticed my wet underpants so I told her what had happened.

After I got changed she accompanied me back to school, went up to the teacher and showed her my wet pants: 'that's no way to send a child home' she said.

I can still see my little pair of pants in her hand as she showed them to the teacher who looked at them as if she was being presented with a cold wet fish. 
I was worried that my mother was going to swing them at her and rub her nose in them but - she really wasn't confrontational.

Many years later I was in a TV show – a soap called Crossroads; it was on TV 5 nights a week at 6.35pm and was watched by about 15 million people, maybe more, as there were only 2 channels in those days. Everybody seemed to watch and seemed to know me wherever I went.

Except for some people who made it their business to tell me they'd never heard of me which has always been the case - 'I know you're an actor but I've never heard of you, mate' it would be - which has always amused me; who are these people?

Anyway my mother was at the Alexandra Theatre, in the centre of Birmingham, and who should she see but Miss Prime, the teacher from the school, with a load of kids. She went up to my mother and said 'we see Christopher on television all the time and we're very proud' and my mother said 'do you remember his pissy pants?' 

Nice one, mom!

It is said that men find it harder to hold on to their pee the older they get but in my case it seems to be the other way round. It must have been psychological as I can keep it for hours now. 
When I was doing a show at the Edinburgh Festival I remember there was only one loo at the venue and we had to walk through the audience to gain access to it, so as soon as the audience came in you had to hold it. Many a night I was absolutely bursting to go but for some strange magic reason it didn't bother me when I was in front of the audience. As soon as I made my entrance the sensation of needing a pee went; I never felt it throughout the show but as soon as the curtain came down I was back to square one – hopping up and down till I could empty out.

So you see I have quite a history of memorable pees. 
When I worked at the theatre in Reading I was staying with friends in Barnes and after the show we would drive along the motorway back in to London and nine times out of ten we had to stop whilst I peed on the hard shoulder.

By the way this gets read in the USA by quite a few people and I have to explain that the hard shoulder on the motorway is the part where you pull in to if you break down; so a very dangerous place to pee – especially if you are standing down wind of it!!