Tag Archives: U

What is W? It looks like two Vs but its name says it is U doubled. It is a consonant, but in other times in select places, it is a vowel. What happened? Why do we have W?

Before English was ever written down, there was a W sound in it. They had a letter for it too: the Wyn rune, ᚹ or Ƿ in manuscript form. This is how we would be writing our Ws, if the world had been otherwise: this is hoƿ ƿe ƿould be ƿriting our Ƿs if the ƿorld had been otherƿise. But it was not otherƿise. England had been occupied by Rome for 400 years, and when they left they didn’t take everything, they left their Latin behind all over the place. It wasn’t a switching off of the lights either when they went, people still considered themselves Roman for quite a long time after, and Latin kept a … More

Say something. Go ahead, you heard me, say it and listen to yourself. Now say it about a hundred years ago. Hear it? You can hear it. Different. Speech sounds change. Accents change. You’ve changed. You think you sound the same but go back home after some distance and they’ll tell you different. And they’ll tell it to you differently. English has changed, big time, my God it’s different. It’s old. It’s medieval. Let’s think of a famous medieval person, to see how old. Somebody with a real mark of distinction. Dante. Dante Aligheri. He finished writing the Divine Comedy in 1320. He’s really really old, hundreds of years. Think of this, in this current moment we are closer in years to Dante than he was to the start of Old English. And from the Rune Poem to us he’s in the middle of the path of life. Not the runes, they’re even older, the … More

Stanza 2: Aurochs

byþ anmod.         and ofer hyrned.
fela frecne. deor         feohteþ. mid hornum.
mære morstapa.          is modig wuht
᛬᛫

It is singleminded and overhorned
Fiercely dangerous wild beast, fights with horns
Famous moor-stepper; that is a spirited being.

 

Translating Ur

Ur, the aurochs, is a wild bovine, like a cow but not a normal cow. Dangerous. Think of the fiercest cows you know: the toro bravo they use for bull fighting, or the Jersey dairy bull which is particularly unpleasant. Gather them together, herd them up, the dangerous cows, and look at them. Imagine what they could do to you if they wanted to, and they want to. These angry cows are nothing; the aurochs was worse. The aurochs was all their daddies.

And wild. The cow is domesticated, the bison is not, so as a wild bovine the bison makes for a better comparison to the aurochs, personality-wise. Take a minute and search up some video of what happens when tourists tease bison. Go ahead, separate window, take a look. Did you see that? Don’t mess with a bison. Leave it alone. Take no selfie. The bison hates you.

The bison is a sweetheart … More

How to Look Joyful

Look at yourself in a mirror or other reflective surface such as shiny metal or a pond. Be careful with ponds, you could fall in or get stuck there staring at yourself forever, wasting away until you become a flower or some such. This is to be avoided.

Note the current state of your appearance. Do you look moody? Do you look terrible? Ascertain if you must ask yourself if you look terrible or if you already know the answer.

Begin with your posture. You must hold yourself in a relaxed manner without thinking about it. If you are thinking about your posture, you won’t be able to shape yourself naturally into a joyful position and may appear wooden and flat.

Try to relax your shoulders. Hold them too close to your ears and you look stressed, too far forward and you look defeated. Try to pull your shoulders down and back. Not … More

U is for Expnged

For the mpteenth time yo mst nderstand that yor nkindness leaves me nable to tter yor name or anything abot yo from now ntil yo die. Not even then. Yor nabashed and nnatral behavior has made yo npoplar and yo mst nderstand that I will have nothing to do with yo, yo nfaithfl cnt. Yo are sprflos, seless, and nwelcome in this contry.

Rune Casting: Ur

I hope you’re ready for a fight because you are about to be flattened so badly you’ll be famous for it. Something is howling in from the wilderness, sent to blow your life down and not in a subtle way. This will be a wolf in wolf’s clothing with a one track mind, eyes locked on you, and your sad little piggy house is made of nothing.

How to prevent? Don’t make eye contact and stay out of the wilderness.

Send air through your larynx without stopping it. Let it pass freely. Let it through, some things you just have to let go. That’s a vowel. Stop the air with your throat or mouth, it’s a consonant.

Don’t stop, this is about U. U and U alone. Place your tongue in the middle of your mouth, center it. Now pull in your lips on all sides. Pursed. Hold up now, Just a teeny purse, don’t let your lips stick out too far: you want to say the letter U, not detach yourself from reality. There you go, now let the air out. Excessively pursed lips tell facial recognition experts (trust me, there is such an expert) that you are saying something opposite to reality, the one in your head: you are speaking in opposition to your thinking. Maybe you don’t understand what you are saying, but you are saying it anyway. Maybe you are lying. … More