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THE SILENCE OF THE LETTERS

           As a kid I recall a story (A table is a table) from my English Reader where out of sheer boredom, the main character decides to rename / jumble up all things around him. The books became chairs, the chairs became pillows, the table became something else and so on. That story never ceased to intrigue me over these years. Or inspire me. 

        So, after nearly 37 years of racking my head trying to come up with my own idiosyncrasy, I've finally decided that I've had enough of the silly silent letters in my beloved queen's English. No more of laffing any longer. Henceforth, the u, g and h in "laughter" will get their proper respect and pronunciation(s). I bet there are already plenty of people who are disgusted with the treatment meted out to the poor ‘t’ in ‘listen’. Or Mr ‘L’in ‘half’. 

    Yeah….My apologies to those who have been momentarily discomfited by the appearance of a capital L in the midst of a sentence, a para …..in the middle of nowhere… and where it was scarcely warranted. But hey folks, just so that you know: the poor small L looks like a capital I, at least in some of the fonts like Arial Narrow. Try typing the word ‘ill’ in the beginning of a sentence and you’ll know what I mean. You’ll have something that looks like the ‘third’ (Ill), plucked right out of ‘George the Third’ from the decidedly wacky English ruling class in that era of blood and gore. 

    Ahhhh ….those days of monarchy, of smoky castles and long cold winters of unwashed men and animals….of ever flowing tales of blood and gore. No wonder, they evoke no such nostalgia like the wild west does. …..sunny days of summer and clear blue skies of winters. 

    The English have retained their prima donna status by virtue of the fact that the gibberish that the Americans speak or the grunts that the South Africans utter, borrows the same grammar and words that’s found in the dictionaries and kindergarten books of that tiny strange island called England. Yes it’s a strange country indeed. It’s a country, supposedly independent with its soccer teams or county cricket. But it’s also a part of something called the United Kingdom and a nation called Britain. The English queen is actually a Scot and the Scots are not the largest consumers of their famed scotch whiskey.

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