Re: Adopting a plural

Philippe Caquant wrote:


> There is also a chapter called "Poor lay Zanglay",
> figuring a written pronunciation help of French
> Language for the English. It goes like this: "Ung joor
> vare meedee ger preelotobüs poor... (snip)
> This is very subtle because it doesn't really indicate
> to an Englishman how he *should* pronounce French, but
> how he *would* probably pronounce it (i.e., the
> English way). So it's a mirror rather than a guide.
>
The converse of that, I guess, would be "Mots d'Heures: Gousse-Rames" in
which familiar English nursery rhymes were written in pseudo-French (which
sometimes actually made sense, more or less), and if pronounced as French
came out curiously like the English. Much fun. (One of them is quoted here:
http://www.phptr.com/articles/article.asp?p=30683 --scroll down a bit.)

At the time the book was popular, friends of mine sent out a Christmas card,
reading "Emaillerie que ris [forget] Sainte Apis nue hier", complete with
footnotes explaining (!) laughing enamel-work, and wondering who Ste. Apis
was, and why she was nude.