Linguistics

[luscious_purple]

I don't remember what the hell I was dreaming, but I woke up with the notion that I should teach a class on "speaking forsoothly." (For those of you not in the SCA, "speaking forsoothly" is trying to use the vocabulary of Elizabethan England instead of the vocabulary of 21st-century American gadget geek.)

I'm certainly not ready to teach that right now, of course, but I felt like reading the two chapters in the old Known World Handbook on the topic, plus I came up with a list of online links.

http://forsooth.ca/ seems to be the main online resource.

http://www.sca.org.au/politarchopolis/arts-and-sciences

http://records.viu.ca/~soules/media112/zine2002/konefall/lang.html

http://www.scatoday.net/node/4794

http://www.scadia.org/tcmact.htm (sort of the reverse, in satire)

http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/wording.html

http://www.dragonslaire.org/Articles/on_being_period.htm

http://www.midrealm.org/dernehealde/Newcomers/primer.php

http://www.middleages.ca/Parma/FRHFAQ.html

Now, I once mentioned to a guy who attends my church semi-regularly (I don't know his name, but he seems to be an awkward fan type) that I am active in the SCA, and he replied that he didn't like the SCA because people in it are all appearance and no substance. As he put it, we spend all this time looking medieval on the outside and make no attempt to speak medieval languages or get into the medieval mindset. I responded that if we spoke twenty different languages, nobody would understand anybody else, and THAT wouldn't be fun. But he didn't get my perspective. Oh, well.

I can't help wondering, though, if SCAdians currently make less of an effort to "speak forsoothly" than they used to (like, pre-1990 or pre-Internet). Certainly I hear lots of modern conversations at events, and since we do so much of our business over the Internet, sometimes it can't be helped. Still, it might be nice if more people put a little more effort into changing their speech from "Hey, how's your Mom doing?" to "M'lord, is your lady mother well?"

And, perchance, the next time somebody exclaims, "That sucks, man," I might respond, "Yes, that dost suck the mighty teat of despair."

Comments

[sporky_rat]

And, perchance, the next time somebody exclaims, "That sucks, man," I might respond, "Yes, that dost suck the mighty teat of despair.

I had a ten year old tell me that after I goggled at someone saying that. I was escorting him back to his camp and we heard someone holler 'That sucks!'. He looks at me, owlishly, and says, 'M'lady, that dost suck the mighty teat of anguish and dispair. Perhaps we could rest a bit at the privy?'

He was so cute.