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Re: OT Re: some spoilers: language and THE DAVINCI CODE

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 4, 2003, 16:04
On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 01:45:14AM -0400, Roger Mills wrote:
> Just remember the magic words: etaoin shrdlu
???
> English _recorded/spoken_ backwards-- now that is a wonderment. Sounds like > Russian with a Swedish accent, or vice-versa.
And very hard to produce without mechanical assistance. I believe it was Douglas Hofstadter who wrote about spending quite some time learning to pronounce English backwards effectively - such that he could record himself and then play it backwards and get intelligible English. I've always supposed that was what Zatanna's spells actually sounded like in the comics (speaking of magic words), which would make her skills somewhat more impressive. Unfortunately, though predictably, when she showed up in Batman: The Animated Series, she used the phonetic pronunciation of backwards-WRITTEN English. Ah, well. -Mark

Replies

Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Roger Mills <romilly@...>
David Starner <dvdeug@...>