h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Jacques Bellot's 1586 Phrasebook: How to Speake English Perfectlye - A88048100
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor - U1590784

I stumbled across this gem of a phrasebook through the good offices of Simon Roper, whose enthusiastic Youtube was more concerned with tracing everyday English back in history.

I, naturally, thought about hovercrafts and the vagaries of ESL teaching. Also Ionesco.

I hope you enjoy this.

Excellent - very funny all round!

Just one question: can we have a note about the 'u's and 'v's, please? I see the variability is included in the original printed book, but at first I was thinking it was a computer trying to read handwriting

"We appreciate this window into the everyday life of another age." -

Glad you liked it. I thought it was too funny not to be in the Guide.

And . I put in a footnote. I checked, and the rule at this time was:
'V' at the beginning of the word, 'u' everywhere else. Nobody needs a long song-and-dance about the history of 'u' and 'v', so that's all I said.

I really should spend more time in Peer Review. This was wonderful.

Am I right in thinking that the "shroude boy" is the same word as that used by Shakespeare in the Taming of the Shrew?

The comment about the IT manager is witty, but IMO unnecessary - below your usual standard. Such comments are rather cheesy and made by/for those with a low bar for humour. There is enough comedy here without that.

M. Bellot has a lot to learn about phonetics: Reading the example of English pronunciation for a French speaker of the time, one can only speculate as to how he would pronounce "stumble" which Bellot has left unchanged.

Now I am interested to find out more about how pronunciation was taught and transcribed before the phonetic alphabet was developed. Even in Shakespeare's day, it was a source of comedy. I am reminded of Catherine being taught English in Henry V, which we went over in great detail at school.

Thanks for reading, TC!

I'm guessing that 'shroude boy' is 'shrew(e)d boy', for the same reason you are. I've never seen it anywhere else. I wonder if it means we've been mispronouncing the title of the play? After all, 'Kate' was really 'Kat'....

I removed the cheesy joke. It was actually put there for Bluebottle, as the sentence began with 'sadly'.

I thought of Henry V, too, when I looked at the author's heroic attempts at phonetic transcription.

They are even more heroic when you reflect that those sounds you hear in your head when you read these passages aren't anything like the way English was spoken in 1586. There has been some good work done on accents - my personal favourite is the fella who impersonates the Witchfinder General of Massachusetts, but he's kinda long-winded and calls everybody miserable sinners. Here's a quick prologue from 'Shakspere':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVD98d9GPa8

Thanks for the footnote - that answers the question just right

'ew' is an interesting one - I know Shrewsbury's pronunciation can/should be Shrowsbry. My linguist cousin often spells 'Show' as 'Shew', too.

The Authorised Version uses 'shew', as well.

Sadly.... IT manager...?
"Such comments are rather cheesy and made by/for those with a low bar for humour." "It was actually put there for Bluebottle"

I am a man more sinned against than sinning

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I merely remarked that the list of 16th-century professions 'sadly' failed to mention an IT manager.

Sorry, Bluebottle!

I don't think I want to mention the Great Vowel Shift now.
Or that lampreys counted as fish and so could be eaten on Fridays and during Lent, unlike meat.
As for shoehorns - well, it wasn't until the 19th Century that having left and right shoes were common, before they were multipurpose. And before the invention of the bicycle* and sewers, 'roads' weren't paved and weren't pleasant. So if you have the choice of getting loose shoes that may well come off your feet when you're walking in something you hope is mud, but probably a mixture of cowpats and horse manure and who knows what else, or tight shoes (thick, stiff leather) that you need a shoehorn's help in putting on, but will then keep your feet clean - well, not a difficult choice.

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*Both Britain and America's modern road networks trace their origins to macadamised (tarmac) roads made by cyclists for cyclists before** the invention of the motorcar.

** The car being generally credited with having been invented in 1886, although admittedly Trevithick's steam carriage worked in 1803.

Now, I didn't know that about the lampreys. Elektra just saw them mentioned and the idea of lampreys as a food item made her go, 'Ewwww!'

We always had shoehorns in our house when I was growing up. And I did know that about the no-left-or-right shoes.

Here's a bit about the bespoke boots Abraham Lincoln was wearing the night he was shot. I've often thought that he probably hadn't worn left-and-right boots before he became president. They weren't even introduced until 1854. And he took a very large size, even by today's standards.

http://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2021/06/what-happened-to-lincolns-boots-after-he-was-assassinated.html

Of course, one way to deal with muddy streets (a common one) was to wear pattens. I'd have broken my neck.

Less a case of my hovercraft being full of eels, more a case of a surfeit of lampreys...

King Henry I overdosed on them, he loved them so much.
(Not to be confused with the Henrys of the War of the Three Henrys, fought in France at the time this dictionary was published - one of the constant Wars of Religion that dominated the latter half of 16th Century France).
Which, if this was intended for Huguenots, as seems extremely likely, makes the reference to "the sickenesse and the dearth, which be now a dayes almost throughout all Fraunce... But I hope that God will remember them: for he neuer forsaketh them which doe thrust in him." a interesting comment, as of course it would be the predominantly Catholic, and anti-Huguenot, side suffering. Oh, and Paris. Lots of plague in Paris. (I'd sympathise more if they hadn't invaded the Isle of Wight in 1545).

In Southampton where I work the two main roads in the old city were called English Street and French Street, with the latter named after the French Huguenots and Walloons that fled there - there's still a church behind the city walls: http://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1091959?section=official-list-entry

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And, of course, Paul Revere was from a Huguenot family, as was Davy Crockett, though he didn't know it...

Paul Revere being court martialled for cowardice by General Wadsworth, 80 years before Wadsworth's grandson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow thought 'Aha! 'Revere' is a poetic name that lots of things rhyme with, I'll write a fictitious poem about him'.

A great poem, and definitely a heroic-sounding name, but not actually fact but because it is a good poem many have believed it to be. (What Longfellow would have done if Paul Revere had been christened with a less heroic name, say, Noel Coward, we'll never know)

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Someone a long time ago had remarked that it was because 'Dawes' didn't rhyme with the right words. Also, there was a young woman who did most of the warning that night. Historical poems are mostly wrong.

Revere was better-known as a silversmith and engraver - also propagandist. He was responsible for a terribly inaccurate piece of agit-prop about the misnamed 'Boston Massacre', a snowball fight that got out of control. John Adams defended the British soldiers, and made a good job of it, too.

Aha! Today is the 18th of April, which is the anniversary of what Bluebottle was talking about. Tomorrow is Patriots' Day in Massachusetts, I presume so they can have a long weekend and run their marathon.

Anyway, here's a historian and National Park Service ranger explaining things (with much humour and a cartoon):

http://twitter.com/AdroitlyAbsurd/status/1781024059238551980