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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Listening to a lisper presents few problems. “Little Myth Muffet” may fleetingly pique one’s interest, but all becomes clear once the curdth and the big thpider appear. Th-fronters, on the other hand, can puncture my poor processing capacities within a few seconds. I hear a musician mention “deaf frets” for instance, and I can’t tell quickly enough whether his life is in danger or his instrument needs repair. “Anathema to” stopped me for some time the other day. An affirmer too? Another mat? Anna Fumatu? Enough o’ Matt eh? A naff mat, uh? Meanwhile, the speaker’s off over the horizon and I hold only a wisp of Fred.
Others have problems too. If miff is an unfamiliar word, it can be reconstrued as myth in a suitably eggcornish fashion.
I bought the 3 volume set of Dee and was a bit mythed that they did NOT translate the latin. They just expect us to know it!
He was a bit mythed as he had already had the usual heater pipes replaced 6 months earlier. Me being a mechanic by trade had a look.
I am a bit mythed as to what these could be. i have taken pictures of them. Would anyone be able to shed any light?
I was mythed by the “chips in an silver bean can thing”, and when i arrived home….i made a sandwich.
Myth, pressed into service as a verb, suggests being perplexed perhaps, or disappointed and deceived by mystery and vagueness.
Last edited by Peter Forster (2021-10-17 08:39:39)
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The meaning shift from “irritated” to “surprised, baffled” is not a terribly small one, but neither is it huge. As someone said (Lord Dundreary, somehow I think I remember?) one is fairly often likely to be “surprised and pleased, but mostly surprised.”
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I greatly enjoyed your excursions into miffical territories, deaf frets and such. Keep the Fred going.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2021-10-16 10:42:00)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Last week I was sitting in my car in a car park, reading a book while waiting for my passenger to return. Another car parked nearby and three th-fronters climbed out. I had no wish to eavesdrop but had little alternative since they were so loud. One of the three I could not understand at all since most of her consonants were seemingly comprised of effs and vees.
I was suddenly interested and briefly considered leaving my book and following the voluble trio to hear a little more, but they moved so ponderously that I could not follow without looking ridiculous and arousing suspicion so, thus excused, I returned to my reading.
Later it struck me that I must have encountered a lisping th-fronter, and she’d flipped through my fingers. Z and s are lisped into a voiced and unvoiced th, then the latter are th-fronted into v and f. Sister Susie becomes thithter Thusie, then fifter Fuvie. The size of your thighs would become the five of your five! I imagine though that friends and family would soon adjust, and given that the context was say, Greek mythology, even the miff of Fiffifuff could be plucked from the effing vees. Still, lisping and th-fronting outside of the home community must present fairly severe communication problems.
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