Why we don't eat "pirrodge" for breakfast

[ChrisGreaves]

More classic "Stroud" Episode 122: The Name of the Game at the 52m17s mark

"In fact, this statute – which required the use of English – was itself composed in French. So here we have a bunch of English-speaking Parliamentarians who sometimes spoke French in Parliament, enacting a law in French, which required English to be spoken in the courts, but also required that the proceedings be written down and preserved in Latin. And that pretty much sums up the linguistic situation in England in the mid-1300s."
Cheers
Chris

[GeoffW]

Interesting.

I suspect you found it looking for another story on the same page, about the history of a word commonly (or not) regarded as obscene ;-)

[Argus]

That it is the same in Swedish comes as no surprise. That said, we don't eat pirrodge nor porridge^{1, 2} for breakfast, or any time.


1 But we have sneakers, sale, food courts, people frequently go to resorts, airports; pubs tell us they have interesting food (as someone said, describing food as "interesting" has slightly negative connotations in English ), etc. &c &c.

                                                                                                                                                    Pottage (+ some Vulgar Latin).
                                                                                                                                                    |
2 We eat gröt, sometimes, for breakfast. Gröt (SWE) - grautr (old Norse) - grut (old English) - groats -> porridge.

[HansV]

I see what you did there, Chris!

[Argus]

I see what you did there, Chris!

I didn't, until you told me.

So do I

[ChrisGreaves]

I suspect you found it looking for another story on the same page, about the history of a word commonly (or not) regarded as obscene ;-)

Hi Geoff. I see your point, but had not spotted that until an eviler mind than mine pointed it out.
Truth is I treat myself to one bit of "froth" each day on a news site. As you know, language interests me, and one of the Steven Pinker books deals with the issue of fiddle-faddle vs. faddle-fiddle, with an essay on the muscles of the mouth and tongue. A great explanation of the brain deciding how to optimise the sequence of muscle movements.
Hence Follows my Fervent Fascination For the First Film, and my Failure to Find the Following Film.
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

We eat gröt, sometimes, for breakfast. Gröt (SWE) - grautr (old Norse) - grut (old English) - groats -> porridge.

Hence, I guess, "grits" in the southern part of the USA?
Cheers
Chris

[GeoffW]

We eat gröt, sometimes, for breakfast. Gröt (SWE) - grautr (old Norse) - grut (old English) - groats -> porridge.

Hence, I guess, "grits" in the southern part of the USA?
Cheers
Chris

Perhaps that should be groats grits. Or grits groats.

Have you seen the History of English Podcast? I've been listening to it for a few years now.

[HansV]

I hadn't realized that English Podcast was so old that it already has its own history...

[GeoffW]

The History of the History of English Podcast Podcast is its own podcast.

[ChrisGreaves]

Have you seen the History of English Podcast? I've been listening to it for a few years now.

Hi Geoff; thanks for adding, at a rough estimate 200 hours, to my podcast backlog.
That means an extra 200 hours of walking around, or cycling around, Bonavista, and FWIW it is still raining ...

Chris

[GeoffW]

Nah. About 160 hours. And play them at 1.5 times normal speed. So a little over 100 hours will do it.

That's about the number of waking hours between now and when it stops raining.

[ChrisGreaves]

Nah. About 160 hours. And play them at 1.5 times normal speed. So a little over 100 hours will do it.

Funny you should mention that. I do have the ABC's AM set at 1.3 (as fast as Podcast Addict will go I stand corrected, 5.0x, which would cut the playing time down to a working week), which will be amusing if ever someone asks to listen to Australian as she is spoke. ("Gee, those Aussies sure are hard to understand").
I had the Guardian's Science Weekly set fast until I had problems understanding the sound-bites from experts.

That's about the number of waking hours between now and when it stops raining.

Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

Nah. About 160 hours. And play them at 1.5 times normal speed. So a little over 100 hours will do it.

Funny you should mention that. I do have the ABC's AM set at 1.3 (as fast as Podcast Addict will go I stand corrected, 5.0x, which would cut the playing time down to a working week) ...

And two ears; plug one into a MP3 player and the other to a phone and you can cut it into half of that time. A bit difficult concentrating on the reading I admit ...

[BobH]

It is said that Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, could write Latin with one hand Greek with the other simultaneously; therefore listening to different parts from each ear should be a snap.

[HansV]

But there are few people speaking classical Greek and Latin nowadays...

[BobH]

^^^
Given the increase in population since Jefferson's days, it wouldn't surprise me to find that there actually are more speaking those languages now than then.

[stuck]

....more speaking those languages now than then.

Recently we drove past a building signed 'Oxford Language School'. "Didn't know there was such a thing as the Oxford language", says I, thinking I'm being witty. Faster than a speeding bullet stuckling2 comes back, "The language of Oxford is Latin, I thought everybody knew that."

Ken

[HansV]

Excellent!

[StuartR]

"The language of Oxford is Latin, I thought everybody knew that."

I remember being at dinner in Magdalen College on Oak Apple Day one year. The language of the high table that day was Old Norman. They passed round a cup of wine and everyone had to recite this phrase in Old Norman, I forget what it meant now.