He Kaitaki Kupu
Katahi ano ka mutu taku panui Righting the Mother Tongue: From Old English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling, by David Wolman.
You may not know what orthography and etymology are, and that’s okay. I know I’m a butcher of grammar and spelling, but this book made me feel better about my skills. There are millions of words in the English language, but the average high school graduate knows about 60,000. The fact is that most of us don’t have a clue what the majority of words are in our language!
Ours is a phonetically incorrect language and a nearly impossible language to learn. Some folks believe that misspelling is a sign of ignorance, but Shakespeare himself used to invent and misspell words as he saw fit. He felt letters and words were like clay to a sculptor. Imagine if I made up my own redunculous words on this blog, folks would belittle me (right before leaving).
I a tatou e neke atu ana ki te mileniuma hou, ka korero tatou i nga kupu mo te hangarau kaore pea e kitea i roto i nga papakupu whai mana… a ko nga kaiwhakaputa papakupu kaore e whakaae mo te aha e kore ai e taea.
Ki te kore koe e whakapono kei te hanga kupu hou matou i a maatau e haere ana, me anga whakamuri koe ki muri OK…. koinei ranei Te pai… Koina ranei tika tika or kore kureck. Just think, your grandchildren may have a part of their daily conversations, rofl, lmao, asap, lol, or ttfn.
Kaua e whakaponohia? Pehea te kupu Puta, which used to be an acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. How about Blog, which less than a decade ago was Web log! With the word has come blogger, blogged, blogging, and blogware. It’s a fairly exciting time as well because many of the words,
akene, or short codes that are being generated online today are used internationally.It’s interesting how advertising and marketing need not follow the rules of orthography. We’ve got companies like Google, things like the iPhone, and products like Twitter that are all fully acceptable – yet we have very little tolerance for accidental misspellings in our own content. I think it’s fascinating.
Mauruuru ka taea tonu e taatau te whakawhirinaki ki runga i te takikupu!
He tirotiro takikupu ta to kanohi,
I haere mai me taku Moana Pea.
Ko te rererangi lee tohu wha taku revue
Miss Steaks Ka taea e au te moana moana.
Ka patu te karu i nga toroa ka patohia he kupu
Me te taumaha e wha e kii ana te rua
Weather kanohi Kei te tuhituhi ahau he hoe he
Ka tika te korero ki ahau.
I’d encourage you to pick up a copy of the book; it’s a fascinating walk through history. David keeps the reading very light. Even more entertaining is that he narrates all of the origins of English as he visits the places where they were transformed. It’s a tino panui!