This is what you get when burghcraftsmen meddle with booksmanship! I laughed out loud several times ("Of the Monks, Iowa"...) The language reforms of the early Turkish Republic must have felt like this in the 1920s, and perhaps other historical tongue-cleansing movements too.
A short wander into the internet just led me to "Uncleftish Beholding" by Poul Anderson — recommended for the extremists who want to do away with Hellenisms as well (while still being able to discuss nuclear physics)
Whew. I am late to the party on this one and it was indeed a challenging & rewarding read, though I got the trick _just_ before the giveaway, I think. Back when I first read Adair's translation of Perec, I went around for three days afterwards hearing every sentence in English as though I had just heard every single word repeated to the point of semantic satiation, and this has made me very sensitive to the creepy effects of language like this. Of course by the 2030's the censorship work will all be outsourced to AIs which will be no better at "knowing" which words are from where than the average folk-etymologist, and all kinds of mistakes will be made in terms of the wrong words being banned &/or accepted, and the loopholes permitted.
I commend, in this vein, Sam Holcroft's short play _Edgar & Annabel_, if you do not know it.
The writ-overseers of the board must have gone beyond themselves a bit; as far as I can tell - and Etymonline seems to be of the same meaning - the word "mind" would be fully Teutonic, straight from old Hindu-Teutonic *men meaning "to think", like the Sanskrit "manas", and not from its evil Romish near-look-alike. One must take care when clipping the nail not to carve the finger!
Yes there are a few cases like that in the text, of words that have a Latin cognate while not deriving from Latin (as both the Latin and the English derive from a shared Indo-European ancestor), but that are nonetheless suppressed as a result of the Board's overzealous efforts.
This is what you get when burghcraftsmen meddle with booksmanship! I laughed out loud several times ("Of the Monks, Iowa"...) The language reforms of the early Turkish Republic must have felt like this in the 1920s, and perhaps other historical tongue-cleansing movements too.
The Turkish language reform was indeed the unspoken inspiration for the story. Thanks!
I was reminded of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toubon_Law
A short wander into the internet just led me to "Uncleftish Beholding" by Poul Anderson — recommended for the extremists who want to do away with Hellenisms as well (while still being able to discuss nuclear physics)
Oh excellent, thanks for sharing this find!
Very entertaining as usual. Listened on substack, but did see on both Spotify and Podcast Addict under "The Hinternet Academy" banner. Carry on.
Thanks, Pete, that’s very helpful!
Very very subversive 😶🌫️ (can I say that?)
Say it now, you might not be able to in 2036!
OMG WTF FR
FR!
ALL HAIL THE ANGLISH!
Listening in from my audio backlog in the great underdog podcast app Overcast. No video for me, but keep it going strong.
Whew. I am late to the party on this one and it was indeed a challenging & rewarding read, though I got the trick _just_ before the giveaway, I think. Back when I first read Adair's translation of Perec, I went around for three days afterwards hearing every sentence in English as though I had just heard every single word repeated to the point of semantic satiation, and this has made me very sensitive to the creepy effects of language like this. Of course by the 2030's the censorship work will all be outsourced to AIs which will be no better at "knowing" which words are from where than the average folk-etymologist, and all kinds of mistakes will be made in terms of the wrong words being banned &/or accepted, and the loopholes permitted.
I commend, in this vein, Sam Holcroft's short play _Edgar & Annabel_, if you do not know it.
The writ-overseers of the board must have gone beyond themselves a bit; as far as I can tell - and Etymonline seems to be of the same meaning - the word "mind" would be fully Teutonic, straight from old Hindu-Teutonic *men meaning "to think", like the Sanskrit "manas", and not from its evil Romish near-look-alike. One must take care when clipping the nail not to carve the finger!
Yes there are a few cases like that in the text, of words that have a Latin cognate while not deriving from Latin (as both the Latin and the English derive from a shared Indo-European ancestor), but that are nonetheless suppressed as a result of the Board's overzealous efforts.