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Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Great Vowel Shift

Kids used to put make-up to look older (mostly to get into cinema halls showing A-rated movies - they were strict back then). They grew older and began using make-up for just the opposite effect.

No big relevation there but it sort of applies to my life, not the dolling up bit but the fact that I have actually got around to doing my MA (alebit correspondence). Am I the same person who couldn't wait to get out of college and get into advertising? Does age do this to you?? AAArgh and crazy as it sounds - I actually WANT to study and it's not as if I don't have a choice. Two negatives make a postive. Pigs will fly.

Am I one step away from senility? Besides what earthly good is an MA in my field. None. But working from home, this is the one time I could have a go at it, so there you go - that's my explanation. Besides there is this whole body of literature I wouldn't have touched with a bargepole otherwise. I am no longer petrified of Yeats, Chaucer and Shakespeare....and I am the receptacle of totally irrelevant but nonetheless interesting info like-
1. Why Latin, Celtic, Scandinavian and French crept into the English Language
2 . What the Great Vowel Shift is all about
3. That Jacob 'Fairytale' Grimm was a respected philologist
4. The world's coolest Lit site is this one - Sparknotes.com

While none of these are ice-breakers and I doubt if I could squeeze in the importance of the Great Vowel shift in party banter ..what I can tell you for sure is Asterix and Caeser's Gift uses dialogues from Hamlet...and no it is not TO BE OR NOT TO BE.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, good to see you took time off from MA to blog a bit.
yeah, I think one gets so bored with mindless, routine jobs that it is great fun to get back to studies just to flex the brain a bit. and the best part is since you decide to study on your own, it is much more fun as opposed to doing it becauseit is the done thing to do.

Anonymous said...

MA with advertising. Interesting indeed.

Mellowdrama said...

Hey Shaft, dead right also something rotten in the state of Denmark :) I LOVE Asterix..it's got to be the world's best series seconded only by Calvin and Hobbes

Aishwarya said...

Well it depends. I managed to work the great vowel shift into a class discussion in class X (yes I was a precocious brat) along with the information that the "æ" sign is called an "ash".

Unknown said...

Who cares about how much higher the vowel shifts. And is is vowel pronounced just the same a bowel?

Anonymous said...

dunno too much asterix. khan's last monologue in star trek 2 was surely hamlet...right?

To the last I will grapple with thee!