One Year On....

Exactly a year ago, my Mother and I sat in our house dazed, exhausted, and heartbroken. Though my Father died peacefully in his sleep it was not peaceful after the fact. Organizing services and obituaries in two countries was a challenge, but we seemed to manage. Then organizing books in a library of over 2000 books to either keep, sell or give to students, etc. but we're close to finishing. Basically, this year has not been without its ups and downs, and for the most part it's been in a cloud. The overall feeling is definitely that life goes on around you, but your life-cart has lost a wheel. It's not a feeling that can be described, nor does it dissipate. The best way I can described how it feels is you get used to feeling that way. You get better at thinking about what happened and replaying the day's events in your mind with a little more strength every time. It becomes part of who you are, as it has part of me. The first year is all about doing everything once without one person: Birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries. Then there's the special events you wish they were here for: engagements, graduation, etc. We made it through these firsts, and now prepare ourselves for the seconds. One thing's for certain, my Family and I couldn't have gotten through this past year without your prayers and support. Thank you all!

Aged 4
Aged 24
His wedding to Mum, 1980.
With his girls, me aged 4, Catherine aged 8, and Allie aged 16.

Why is the English the Lingua franca?

On one of my many trollings through the internet, I found an ancient email sent from my Dad on the 14th of May 1993 through the "gophermail" system at McGill. At a time when departments were scared to "go online" and "network", and when the speed of the internet was gaged by a traffic light system at the bottom of the screen; red meant there were lots of people online and it was running slowly, yellow meant it was slow but you could manage, and green was clear running, my Father encouraged internet use. Everyone who had internet then recognizes those beeps, buzzes, whurrs and clicks that meant you were dialing up. But most of all, we can all remember the screams of frustration when someone trying to email, download, etc., was thrown off the internet by someone in the house unknowingly picking up the phone! We have a funny family memory of our Father shouting out in aforementioned anger, and storming up the stairs, bursting into my sister Catherine's room yelling "did you pick up the phone?!" only to find she was sound asleep. Sheepishly, he retreated downstairs to be angry at the internet.

Here's the email, which outlines the difficulties we often face with the English language. I get a great kick out of it, and it's best read aloud because the humour is lost in just reading. I hope it gives you a good chuckle.

"I just thought as a lightener that the net would be interested in
seeing the following, which I found in a gopher hole. It certainly
shows how complicated pronunciations can be now at least, whatever
they might have been in earlier days. It makes a jolly good read,
though.

Everyone going to Kalamazoo have a wonderful time.

Abbott Conway,
McGill University.



           WHY IS ENGLISH THE LINGUA FRANCA?

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization
headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ...
until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of
accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a
Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six
lines aloud. Try them yourself.

                ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
           ======================

           Dearest creature in creation,
                Study English pronunciation.
                I will teach you in my verse
                Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
                I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
                Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
                Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
                So shall I!  Oh hear my prayer.

                Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
                Dies and diet, lord and word,
                Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
                (Mind the latter, how it's written.)
                Now I surely will not plague you
                With such words as plaque and ague.
                But be careful how you speak:
                Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
                Cloven, oven, how and low,
                Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

                Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
                Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
                Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
                Exiles, similes, and reviles;
                Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
                Solar, mica, war and far;
                One, anemone, Balmoral,
                Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
                Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
                Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

                Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
                Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
                Blood and flood are not like food,
                Nor is mould like should and would.
                Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
                Toward, to forward, to reward.
                And your pronunciation's OK
                When you correctly say croquet,
                Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
                Friend and fiend, alive and live.

                Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
                And enamour rhyme with hammer.
                River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
                Doll and roll and some and home.
                Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
                Neither does devour with clangour.
                Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
                Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
                Shoes, goes, does.  Now first say finger,
                And then singer, ginger, linger,
                Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
                Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

                Query does not rhyme with very,
                Nor does fury sound like bury.
                Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
                Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
                Though the differences seem little,
                We say actual but victual.
                Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
                Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
                Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
                Dull, bull, and George ate late.
                Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
                Science, conscience, scientific.

                Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
                Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
                We say hallowed, but allowed,
                People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
                Mark the differences, moreover,
                Between mover, cover, clover;
                Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
                Chalice, but police and lice;
                Camel, constable, unstable,
                Principle, disciple, label.

                Petal, panel, and canal,
                Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
                Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
                Senator, spectator, mayor.
                Tour, but our and succour, four.
                Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
                Sea, idea, Korea, area,
                Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
                Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
                Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

                Compare alien with Italian,
                Dandelion and battalion.
                Sally with ally, yea, ye,
                Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
                Say aver, but ever, fever,
                Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
                Heron, granary, canary.
                Crevice and device and aerie.

                Face, but preface, not efface.
                Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
                Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
                Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
                Ear, but earn and wear and tear
                Do not rhyme with here but ere.
                Seven is right, but so is even,
                Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
                Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
                Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

                Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
                Is a paling stout and spikey?
                Won't it make you lose your wits,
                Writing groats and saying grits?
                It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
                Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
                Islington and Isle of Wight,
                Housewife, verdict and indict.

                Finally, which rhymes with enough --
                Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
                Hiccough has the sound of cup.
                My advice is to give up!!!

                                               -- Author Unknown"

R.I.P Little Puff

Sadly, moving house has affected one of us more than the rest. When I went to put my fish back in their tank after moving them from house to house, I found Huff was the only fish alive and only just. I managed to rescue Huff who is now swimming strong and awaiting a new playmate, but unfortunately Puff will join our dog Bonnie and my other fish Simon.