HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1998-02-11, Page 5A Final Thought
Some people are so pessimistic, they'd
complain about the noise if opportunity
knocked.
International Scene
•0nt
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1998. PAGE 5.
Tung-in-cheke
I haven't heard a peep from Ted Culp for a
few years. Hope he all right. Mister Culp is
— or was — president of the Simplified
Spelling Society of Canada.
Sorry ... that should read 'Simplifide-
speling Sosiety ov Canada.
Ted hates the way the English language
works. "It's a very lazy and careless
language," he once told me. "We need to
chop out stuff all down the line."
He's dead serious (or serius). Mister Culp
has written a 30,000-word simplified
dictionary and even published a newspaper
printed in what he calls 'reformed English'.
Much as I love the variety of English, I
have to admit it doesn't make a lot of sense.
How can words like through, threw, you and
glue be spelled so differently and yet all end
with the same sound?
Why is there an "1" in 'could'? A "p" in
'pneumonia'? A "k" in 'knife?
A "u" in valour' and one too many "a"s in
'aardvark?
How •come the letter ''c" gets pronounced
two different ways in the word 'cicada'?
And then there's "ough", which can be
pronounced six different ways -- as in tough,
through, thorough, cough, hiccough and
bough.
Some bard once wrote these words about
the idiocyncrasies of English:
Billet does not sound like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Back in Canada
My stay in the Czech Republic has now
come to an end and I am back in Canada
after my longest absence from home in many
a year. My usual business trips take about a
month; this one was four times as long and
certainly just as interesting as any previous
ones. To be honest I would not have missed
it for anything. It challenged me in new and
fascinating ways.
When I arrived in Frydek-Mistek I really
did not know what to expect. While I had
been given a certain description of the city
and the work I might be doing, I was
uncertain what would be demanded of me.
The fact that I would have to learn yet
another language to add to my existing ones
only served to make it more of a challenge.
However, I argued that I tend to thrive on
challenges and so I set out with a very
positive attitude about the whole affair.
I was not disappointed. It was certainly a
challenge, but one that I found rather
stimulating. I would be less than honest if I
did not say right at the outset that one
deciding factor was the inordinate amount of
hospitality that was shown me from the
beginning. Never, and I have been in a lot of
countries, has such hospitality reached such
high levels.
The result was that I seldom experienced
any real homesickness. I became engrossed
in my work, the people with whom I worked
and the country in general. Almost before I
knew it, tote time came for me to return.
I usually do not mention names in my
column but, among all the people who made
•;• •
Viscous, viscount; load and broad
Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;
Friend and fiend; alive and live;
Worm and storm; chaise, chaos, chair;
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Yup, English is a bizarre language alright.
If Ted Culp had his way, it would be
stripped down and freed from all its
inconsistencies. Cleansed, as he put it, of all
its "extraneous, redundant, superfluous, silent
symbols."
Alas, nobody ever paid much attention to
Ted Culp. Language reformers seldom get
much respect.A couple of hundred years ago,
an American tried to interest his fellow
countrymen in reforming the language. They
ignored him too.
And his name was Benjamin Franklin.
Back at the turn of this century, the great
critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw
unveiled a whole new spelling system plus a
new alphabet.
The world yawned mightily.
Perhaps the world instinctively knew better
than the reformers ever will. This week I
received this in the mail:
DATELINE: BRUSSELS
The European Union commissioners have
announced that agreement has been reached
to adopt English as the preferred language
for European communications, rather than
German, which was the other possibility. As
part of the negotiations, the British
government conceded that English spelling
had some room for improvement and has
accepted a five-year phased plan for what
will be known as EuroEnglish ("Euro" for
my stay so enjoyable, three names stand out.
The first was Jiri Uherek, the head of the
organization I worked with. He and I shared
an intense feeling for hockey and he saw to it
that I was able to attend a number of games
featuring some of the best teams in the
country.
My very first weekend he introduced me to
some members of his family and right to the
end, tried to make my life more pleasant. He
succeeded admirably.
The second was Zdenka Stihlova. She was
the principal of the school but, in fact was far
more like a chief executive officer, given the
tasks that she had to perform.
It was she who met me at the station in
Ostrava late one evening and got me settled.
From then on she never ceased trying to
make me feel at home and, as I told her when
we parted at the airport, I probably did not
know the half of what she had done.
She was always pleasant and she could
show many Canadians the art of running a
school. The world could use more people like
her.
Finally, no matter where you teach, there is
always one student that stands out. In this
case it was Lenka Svitkova, who not only
spoke English without any noticeable accent,
but was a delight to know both in and out of
the classroom. It was Lenka who acted as the
interpreter when the Canadian Figure Skating
Team was out on their crystal-buying binge
and she also acted as my interpreter on a
number of occasions when I needed someone
fluent to Czech to get my point across.
Lenka is a credit to her family, her school
and her country.
There are many things about the Czechs
which fascinated me. Their history and
short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of
the soft ''c''. Sertainly, civil servants will
reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard "c"
will be replaced with "k". Not only will this
klear up konfusion, but typewriter and word
prosessor keyboards kan have one less letter.
Experts predikt there will be growing
publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when
the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by T.
This will make words like "fotograf' twenty
per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the
new spelling kan be expekted to reach the
stage where more komplikated changes are
possible. Governments will enkourage the
removal of double letters, which have always
ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al
wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in
the languag is disgrasful, and they would
disapear.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to
steps such as replacing "th" with "z" and "w"
by "v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan
be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and
similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer
kombinations of leters.
After ziz fifz yer, ye vil hav a reli sensibl
riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or
difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to
understand ech ozer.
Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
I should hasten to tell you that the above
came to me as an e-mail from a reader who
"thought I would get a kick out of it".
Itz purly tung-in-cheke, I m shur.
culture were high on my list of interests and
on a lighter note, it was nice to be able to
discuss hockey with people who were every
bit as knowledgeable as Canadians on the
subject.
To be sure, the country has a long road to
go on their way from a centralized to a
market economy, a road that has been made
rockier by the inability of the government to
correct the incestuous relationship it has with
the banks and investment trusts. Having
started out in fine style, the Czechs now have
to play catch up with their neighbours, the
Hungarians and the Poles.
Just to show you how small a world it is,
on the day I left I was driven to the small
airport at Mosnov, near both Frydek-Mistek
and Ostrava. There was one young man
sitting all by himself in the waiting room.
After I had said good-bye to my Czech
friends, he came over to me and asked if I
was from Canada. He had seen the Canadian
flag on my luggage. I replied that I was.
He then asked what city I was from. I
informed him that it was London, Ont.
"That's amazing," he exclaimed. "So am I."
He was a computer technician who was in
Opava, not far from Frydek-Mistek, to help a
Czech company that was using the Canadian
company's system.
That is what I like about my life. There are
always unexpected pleasures. My stay in the
Czech Republic counts as one of the greatest.
The
short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Love stories
Ahh, romance is in the air!
This weekend is Valentine's Day, a time
for some to express feelings for the first
time, while for the more jaded it can provide
an opportunity to express feelings for
someone long taken for granted.
Love is a funny business. While no one
knows when Cupid's arrow will strike it can
at times seem that the boy could use some
archery lessons. Why do some find their one
and only with the first strike, while others
continually seem off target? Why does the
romantic cherub pierce a few with an
aphrodisiac, others with poison?
Many believe that the differences between
men and women are so extreme it's a wonder
it ever works. The sexes (generally)
communicate on different levels and look at
situations in different ways. Usually their
perspectives on love and marriage are so
diverse that it's perhaps little wonder one in
two marriages fail.
So what is the magic of the 50 per cent
who succeed? Or is it perhaps just
perseverance?
Most people enter into a relationship with
the best intentions. But few can be truly
prepared for the give and take, the true
selflessness that builds a partnership and a
friendship that can sustain and strengthen
you.
Last week on television there were two
amazing examples of the type of generosity
and trust that help make a successful
marriage. While TV, from its earliest days
has gotten a negative reputation - a vast
wasteland, a boob tube - there were only
good lessons to be learned from first a lowly
sitcom, then a real-life story of love and loss.
Dharma and Greg is a comedy about two-
polar opposites whose immediate attraction
to each other has them getting married on
their first date. (This is not the good
example) Their romantic odyssey is, of
course, one of discovery. Last week the
introduction of Dharma's ex-lover, now
friend, has Greg feeling insecure and green-
eyed. Upset, he blurts out that he wants this
guy, who has won over even Greg's snooty
parents, out of their lives. Her response is
immediate. "He is my friend, you are my
husband. If his presence upsets you, then we
won't see him anymore."
No rants about how important the
friendship was to her, nor about how unfair
her husband was being. There was not even
an attempt at co-ercian. It was as it should
be, a caring response to a very real hurt in
her life partner.
The second story was about skaters
Ekaterina Gordeeva and her husband Sergei
Grinkov, who died during a practice in 1995.
This was love that grew from familiarity. It
was truly one of two hearts beating as one.
On several occasions she spoke of looking at
him and being amazed that this was her man.
She remarked from time to time about being
blessed to have his love, about having the
best man in the world.
Soft-spoken and genuine, you could
imagine that the pair seldom said a harsh
word between them.
Sadly, when this beautiful young mother,
widowed in her early 20s, says his death
caused her to die inside, you can imagine
that too. She had the perfect love, she says.
They were the best years of her life.
Heartbreaking, but what a wonderful story
for those who no longer believe in romance
and marriage. And is it possible the potential
could be there for all?
Arthur Black