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there is a law inside the alphabet

The article in question starts on page 19 of my Paladin paperback edition (1989) of "Further Cuttings From Cruiskeen Lawn".
 
There's a lot of laws inside the alphabet, such as "I before E except after C". Their order of appearance is in fact C, E, and I. So QED, MF.
 
Thermal said:
There's a lot of laws inside the alphabet, such as "I before E except after C". Their order of appearance is in fact C, E, and I. So QED, MF.
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"I" before "E," except when your foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from weird feisty caffeinated weightlifters.

There are, in fact, more exceptions to this law than there are words that follow it.
 
arthwollipot said:
"I" before "E," except when your foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from weird feisty caffeinated weightlifters.

There are, in fact, more exceptions to this law than there are words that follow it.
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Lotta typos in that bad boy.

Also gravely concerned about counterfeit beige sleighs and the bodybuilders all zipped up on coffee. Disturbing.

Hoe do you determine a beige sleigh is counterfeit? If it's really fuscia?
 
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Wudang said:
I used to chat with a Japanese woman who translated IBM manuals from English. She mentioned she loved Swift so I sent her a copy of "The Best of Myles". I searched BofM for it and can't find it but it was a collection of his writings. Myles na Gopaleen being Flann's nom de plume. She loved it and told me she got stared at on the train in Japan as she was roaring with laughter at the sketch where people with various accents in London fail to communicate: "I pick up Auden".

ETA: If anyone knows where that story is printed can you let me know please? I'd love to read it again.
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Not printed, but you can read it online via archive.org.
archive.org

The best of Myles : a selection from "Cruiskeen Lawn" : O'Brien, Flann, 1911-1966 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

First published in 1968 by MacGibbon & Kee
archive.org
 
Thermal said:
I don't think anyone over here does that? Not that I've heard, anyway. Zecept that one guy that plays the EXylophone.
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Maybe it’s a TV trope influenced by characters pronunciation in the X-Men movies?
Never heard the pronunciation (or name for that matter uttered) by an IRL USAian, only on a screen, so I can’t say definitively it is a common pronunciation amongst the USTrumpians*.

*that is the new name of the US now isn’t it?
 
EHocking said:
Maybe it’s a TV trope influenced by characters pronunciation in the X-Men movies?
Never heard the pronunciation (or name for that matter uttered) by an IRL USAian, only on a screen, so I can’t say definitively it is a common pronunciation amongst the USTrumpians*.

*that is the new name of the US now isn’t it?
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Not sure. Every time an X is at the beginning of a word (xylophone, Xerox, etc) we say it right, and Xavier follows the same rule. Not a super common enough name over here to really collect much data on, though.
 
zooterkin said:
How is that different from, for example, Spanish, which is phonetic but using the Latin alphabet?
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"phonetic" = (of a system of writing) having a direct correspondence between symbols and sounds.
IPA in linguistics stands for International Phonetic Alphabet.
Since there are no unified alphabet law, Spanish can be as "phonetic" as it likes to be.
 
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