Wordplay
One of the areas I wanted to write a few pieces about, but have neglected, was the strangeness of the English language.
Those that know me in person know I love puns and wordplay. I can generally be found giggling at something which amuses me which I then have to explain to others who hadn’t noticed it, or in some cases had but hadn’t been amused and then are annoyed at me explaining it to them. To quote Brian Keenan in Blind Flight
The Englishman is funny,’ he says, ‘He makes me laugh. The Irishman is witty, he makes me think.’
I’ll dump a few random pieces here so that if I don’t get back to the subject I have at least written something about it.
Lisp
A lisp is a speech impediment which causes people to have trouble pronouncing the letter S. The word lisp has difficulty being pronounced without using said letter. Which cruel shit decided to name it so?
Speech impediment
Seeing the wikipedia article on lisp reminded me of number 2 on the list: speech impediment
. See: lisp, how does someone with a stammer communicate they have a speech impediment with dignity? Again with the cruelty etc.
Abbreviation
An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word. Doctor may be abbreviated to Dr. You can see the clever wee bit of HTML there? That allows you to expand the text using a variety of means to see the full version of the word. The HTML tag for abbreviations is abbreviated to <abbr> due to length.
There were others I had come across and neglected to put up. Do you have a favourite ironic word or phrase? Maybe you call an ambulance when you hear some illiterate prat exclaim my arm has just literally fallen off?
. Post yours in the comments.