Muse‘s most colorful contributor doesn’t know how to have a dull summer:
How’s my summer going? Well, I’ve written an explanation of Hot Pink Bunnies in Elizabethan English (I’m beginning to think normal people don’t get these requests. Maybe it’s because I’m British). I’ve just done a big thing on the Tower of London, which drove the Queen of Muses potty because all the facts had to be double-checked and it needed a poster for the Big Diagram.
I sold a symphony. The sort with a handle, not the sort with oboes and cellos and things.
I built a computer. It has glowing Martian eyes, three hard disks, internal neon lights, five cooling fans, round IDE cables, and lots of other boring tech stuff.
I played music for a wedding on a farm.
I spent two days in a sweltering, airless hall in Stafford, recording the Staffordshire Youth Recorder & Renaissance Ensemble. Me, Uncle Terry, about thirty kids, and a huge collection of recorders, viols, rebecs, shawms, bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies. In England, we still let kids loose on these things. Health & Safety would ban it in America.
Yesterday I dashed round the Midlands trying to get some decent video footage of a donkey. Any donkey. I repeat. Normal people don’t get these requests…..
Paul,
Welcome to MuseBlog! Drop in whenever you like–you’re always welcome. I look forward to seeing your article about the Tower of London. Not to mention the bunnies…
It’s good to hear that life in Kynges Swindforde is as lively as ever. Did you ever find that donkey?
–Robert
you sound busy, Paul! Looking forward to reading your article!
BYNNNNGGGG!!!!
Heh heh heh.
What is a symphony, the kind with a handle and not cellos and oboes and things? Or is that Handel?
I’m looking forward to reading the articles.. And seeing donkeys..
And no, normal people don’t get those requests, but who around here is normal?
lol, ur summer sounds awesome so far!
btw, normality isn’t defined, it’s a relation to surrounding {& approved by some authority} norms, right?
that last sentence made absolutly no sense & sounds like i was trying to act “smart”
I went 2 a pool 2day. There were some Japanese girls talking in Japanese. I only understould when they called each other fools and retards. *sigh*
Sayonara,
-ChinTsu
I found the donkey. Actually, I found two. I went over to visit my mate Snoo at Dudmaston Hall to see if she had any, and she didn’t, but she used to work at Avoncroft Museum, and they did, so I went over there and they still do, and I gottem. The resulting video edited down to four seconds. But that’s the way it goes. It was good excuse to visit Snoo, anyway. If you want to know about Dudmaston, it’s on the Web. Alternatively, ask Sir Edward Pelluw, who has visited the place and paddled a coracle on the lake.
What’s a Symphony? It’s a medieval box-shaped hurdy-gurdy with a single chanterelle and no trompette. I thought everyone knew that.
I’ve just realised that I have a WHOLE SECTION on the Muse Blog. I’d better write something. No point doing the Space Shuttle. You lot are better placed to get info on that.
I know……
England won the second Test at Edgbaston. By two runs! Talk about a cliff-hanger. No-one’s mentioning that Glenn McGrath was injured just before the match and failed to make an apperance. It might have gone the other way if he’d been fit. They hammered us in the first Test.
I can feel waves of confusion wafting across the pond.
There are just a few things you need to know about England.
1) We drink lots of tea. It’s a general solution for all ills. Rather warm today? Put the kettle on. Share prices crashed and likely to go bankrupt? Put the kettle on. Horrible news of suicide bombers on the tube? Put the kettle on. The only thing that will really make an Englshman lose his stiff upper lip is tea deprivation.
2) In the winter (now a hugely extended winter), much of the population plays, discusses, and obsesses over football, which is the game that you lot call soccer, for some reason. It’s a dismal game, requiring huge amounts of effort for no discernible reward, it’s all over in 90 minutes, and it’s just an excuse to let out tribal tensions. It was worth watching a few hundred years ago, when there were 200 players a side, and it was really an excuse for a village battle, but now there are strict rules about not inflicting actual bodily harm on your opponents.
3) In the summer, much of the population plays, discusses, and obsesses over cricket. Cricket is not a game, it’s an institution. It’s the only sport that includes a tea interval, and therefore the only sport that is truly civilised. You can pick your flavour (of cricket as well as tea ) :
Village cricket is the ideal spectator sport. It only takes a day for a match, you take your picnic hamper, and cheer when the ball hits the tree in the middle of the pitch or disappears into the river.
County level cricket is the serious stuff. It even has professional players. A match takes three days, and the rivalry is intense. But not expressed in the uncouth way of football, of course.
Finally, there’s test cricket, which is the international game. Every summer, the England team goes abroad, or another national team over comes here, and they play a series of six test matches. Each match lasts five days, so the series covers most of the summer. The atmosphere reaches fever pitch (or as close as cricket gets to it) with the Ashes – that’s a test series between England and our old rivals, Australia. One hates to admit it, but the current Australian side is remarkably competent, even without their star bowler, the aforesaid Mr. McGrath. We’ve won one match, by the skin of our teeth, but no doubt they will hammer us again in the third. That’s the great English tradition. We win wars against the French. We lose the Ashes to Australia. That’s the way it’s always been.
I’ll help you with the explaination of the Hot Pink Bunnies in elizabethan english.
“The Hot Pink Bunnie doth beeth a very blasphmous creature indeed, so very much so that the Queen herself has banished these monsterous beings from her castle. They doth thinketh of nothing but vile things, and are of a horrid reddish hue.”
My elizabethan english isn’t very good, rather stereotypical…sorry…
Well, Pheebs, at least your Elizabethan English is better than mine. I couldn’t even pronounce some of the terms in my Shakespeare class correctly…
Hello to Paul Baker! Thanks for all your entertaining contributions, as well as your posts. By the way, why were you looking for a donkey to film?
Hail, worthy Musers!
Elizabethan English just requires lots of practice, and a good supply of contemporary ballads. There are plenty on the Web. The trouble with Shakespeare is that he’s erudite and flowery. He was also writing on a cusp. It was cheaper than paper. No, what I mean is that grammar was changing. He doesn’t know whether to use “dyeth” or “dies”. He often uses both forms in the same sentence. It’s great for the flow of language, but a bit confusing for students. Ballads and distribes are much simpler.
OK, a quick grammar lesson for reference. This is the pre-Shakespeare version:
I think
Thou thinkest (familiar form, as in modern French or German)
You think (Polite form when addressing superiors)
He thinketh, she thinketh, it thinketh
They think
We think
As a question, “Thinkest thou?” (familiar) or “Think you?” (polite).
Quite simple, really. One warning : beware of legal documents like wills. They often start with the single word “Witnesseth” – e.g. “Witnesseth that in the year of oure Lorde 1584….”
Now, if it’s supposed to be short for “This document witnesseth”, that’s fine. If it means “I call uppon al men as reade this document to witness”, then the grammar’s wrong.
Oh yes. The donkey.
I’m creating a touch-screen information system for Galton Valley Canal Heritage Centre in Smethwick. The curator writes the script for each section, because he knows lots about the history of the canal network. Then I re-write it and turn it into a shooting script so that it works as a video with a coherent voiceover.
It’s amazing what trouble you can get into, though, writing a script. “Telford returned to his native Scotland” requires an 8-hour round trip to get 4 seconds of footage. Or it would, if I hadn’t found a great still shot of the Scottish mountains.
Anyway, one bit said “The term ‘animals’ also included mules and donkeys, which were used on some parts of the system'”. So I needed 6 seconds of video of a donkey. Or a mule. Or both. I wasn’t bothered. But they’re going out of fashion. I’m sure there are lots of local donkeys, but if you want to find one, who do you ask? Unless you happen to have spotted one while leaning idly on a fence, you’re stuck. It took me a couple of days of phoning and emailing to locate one that wouldn’t take 2 hours to get to. Anyway, I gottit. So I’m happy.
Have fun!
With regard to Elizabethan English:
So Pheebs is overdoing it a little when she writes “doth beeth” and “doth thinketh.” You don’t have to conjugate both verbs, only one–just as we do today. Instead, she should write “Bunnie doth be” and “They do think.”
How about the rules for capitalizing nouns?
Yer wot, our Rob?
They do think” is OK, but “doth be” is still tautological, and no respectable Elizabethan would ever have written it. Try
“The Hot Pink Bunnie is a verie blasphemous creature indede”
It may sound modern, but it’s actually also correct Elizabethan. I’ve Tudored the spelling, though, to make it a bit more quaint. Or antick, as the Elizabethans would say.
Yet, marry, mistress Pheebs, I wolde aske thee straitlye, wherin lyeth its blasphemie? Tis no faulte of the Bunnie that its apect is thus rosier than anie of its felowes. Yf it be an afront to Gods law, the transgression cometh not from the Bunnie, but from he that hath painted it.
Re capitalisation : there were no rules. In printed sources, the tendency was to capitalise every significant noun, proper or not. I’ve just noticed that I automatically capitalised Bunnie twice in the previous post. But it wasn’t consistent. Some sources just do the first letter of the sentence, and might not even capitalise God.
The other delight is the lack of the letters j and v, which were just decorative forms of i and u, and used completely interchangeably, or often not at all. It’s very confusing until you get used to it.
Musers,
To practice your Elizabethan English, you might try reading parts of Edmund Spenser’s book-length poem The Faerie Queene in the original spelling, with Us for Vs and everything. It’s epic fantasy, 400 years before Tolkien. (Two references to Muse in the first verse—the man had taste!)
Well spotted, Robert. Lovely site, and much more approachable than Shakespeare. Watch the archaisms, though, if you’re copying him. “ydrad” in the second stanza of Canto I must have been a century out of date by Spenser’s time. It’s probably there to make the poem sound ancient. Unless the guy was an unreconstructed yokel.
I’ve just been reading it. Great stuff! An Elfin knight, a dwarf, a beautiful but sad woman, a battle with a giant snake monster–and that’s just the first chapter. It’s poetry, so the language isn’t exactly conversational, but (I find, anyway) the spelling starts to seem almost normal after a few verses.
I doth try to do this thing properly, but it doth be verie complicated for dimwitted serfs as myselfe. Yon Hott Pink Bunnie and his kin are the very soul of all that be blasphemous for there horride deeds and vile ways against all forces that doth be got and nice and stuff.
(Doth that be any better?)
-Pheebs
Conjugation, child, conjugation! “I do try”, not “I doth try”.
And “doth be” is just silly. It’s like wearing a pair of curtains and pretending it’s Elizabethan dress. Subsitute “is” or “are” as appropriate.
Apart from that, it’s coming on. Read the first 200 pages of Spenser and it’ll happen by absorption.
Pheebs,
Dimwitted serf? Hardly! Muse readers can match wits with anybody. Walk proudly, milady!
If I were you, I’d just avoid “doth” entirely. It may sound good and old-fashioned to us, but real Elizabethans actually didn’t use it that much except in poetry. In this top-secret report by one of Her Majestie’s spies, for example, “doth” crops up only once in 1400 words.
You just gotta know when it’s applicable, that’s all.
(Looks at Paul Baker’s summer)
(Looks at Morbid’s summer)
(Dies)
i am currently in luv w/ tall ships {just spent a few days on 1} i can’t even write fan-fic in cannon so, u kno, olde english is gonna die if i take it on i’m sure.
btw, does scotland have a criket team?
Scotland has several cricket teams, some of which have their own websites.
So, come on, Cel–tell us some sea stories!
Alright, Almighty Administrators and, um, Paul Bakers, I’ll try it again:
“The Hot Pink Bunnie is a very blasphmouse creature indede, so very much so that the Queen herself
hashath banished these monsterous beings from her castle. Theythinkeththink of nothing but vile things, and are of a horride reddish hue.â€Is that better, O mighty Paul Bakers and Roberts?
Almost there! I’ve taken it the rest of the way.
Just watch those verbs. It’s sort of like lisping: in general, s turns into th. Where we say “he knows,” “she speaks,” they said “he knoweth,” “she speaketh.” That, plus the “-st” ending for “thou” (thou hast, thou knowest, etc.) will take you almost everywhere you need to go.
Her Majestie the Queene wolde be proude of thee (as Paul Baker might say).
Nice one, Pheebs! You’re getting it.
Let’s petition George Bush to create National Elizabethan Day, when everyone HAS to speak Elizabethan or be clapped in jail for the day. Or the stocks, maybe. Do you have stocks in America? (The sort you clap people in, not the sort you buy to make pots of dosh)
“I could tell it was England. The only place where people would muck about in orchestra tents listening to American classic music. Would they do it anywhere else? No. Even in Japan, where national pastimes include ripping out your own intestines with a knife, I think they would draw the line.” -Douglas Adams.
That is definitely nott musik to mine ears. Thou
speakethspeakest of discontent among the people.ArtAre the people discontent?“A SERF: We are not hapy in our lot.
AN APPRENTICE: Nor are we.
This ment the rise of the People and the people hav gone on rising since yeast and they are now hapy and prosperus you ask them when the telly program is over.” -Nigel Molesworth
Zounds! The hot pink bunnies sound most infernal. Indeed, it seemeth to me they
artare [thou art; they are –R.C.] fixated on destruction, dearth, and famine. (Oxford comma? No OC? Huh?) Methinks we should spend our tyme in convincing George Bush to rallie upp ann Exterminator to quench them once and for aul.Sorry, Nigel! Even you have to write Elizabethan English correctly, when you’re on Paul Baker’s part of the blog. –R.C.
hee hee Nigel has to write in English correctly even thoughe he is not officially parte of our happie Blog.
Lo, Musebloggers!
Paul Baker of Swinforde, that is a wonderfule idea. Methinks we should do that,so that we maye see the look of pure surprise upon his face.
It shoulde say this:
Mister President,
‘Tis us, Mr. President, and we do wish that thou create an official Elizabethan English Daye, and those who obeyeth not the rules and do speak in some horride forgien tongue shall thereoff put in the stocks/pillory… Many of us do supporteth this idea. If yue do not wishe to obey us, that is all right… But will yue not at least reply?
Youres Elizabethanily,
Phoebe the Great
That former post maye be rather faultey in script, I do then apologize.
Does anyone here knowe how to tune bagpipes? I knoweth not, it woulde be of much assistance if someone coulde help me.
Tuning the bagpipes? No problem.
Just a query – they are proper bagpipes, aren’t they? Not those hideous Victorian Scottish highland things that aren’t fit to be heard at less than 500 yards? It doesn’t make much difference if they’re in tune or not, as long as they scare the enemy.
Anyway, provided we’re talking about a decent set of English Greats, or a cabrette, or a hummelchen, or a musette de cour, or some Northumbrians, or an Uilean, or even a gaita, if you want to be raucous :
First, make sure the reeds are working properly. If you’re not conversant with adjusting reeds, you’ll need to consult a pro.
Stop off all the drones, and play the chanter for a bit to get it warmed up. Make sure the all the intervals are about right. Tweak the reed if need be, but chanters tend to be relatively stable once they’re working. Especially if you’re using plastic reeds. I hate to say it, but they work on bagpipes the way they don’t on shawms. You can get a situation where the chanter’s in tune with itself, but not with other instruments. That requires adjusting the reeed and probably the staple. Take professional advice.
Once the chanter’s running nicely, add your first drone. Play the keynote on the chanter, and pull the drone slider in and out until the beats disappear, and you can hear that the tuning’s spot on. Play a tune or two to check it. Now bring in the other drones one by one and repeat the process. That’s about it. It shouldn’t take you more than a couple of minutes to get the whole thing singing. If you have persistent trouble, consult your teacher and DEMAND a lesson dedicated purely to tuning.
one of the deckhands on the boat was a piper. he had a pair of shuttle pipes on board with him, he was playing them on saturday night, whic meant that i didn’t actually sleep @ all {too bust dancing} and if u think dancing on a boat is trivial, just try it.
HOWDY PAUL BAKER!
CONSIDORING YOU ARE MUSE’S ‘MOST COLORFUL CONTRIBUTER,’ IT WOULD BE A GRAND SERVICE TO ALL US DIE HARD MUSERS, IF YOU WOULD STOP BY THE ‘MUSE MOVIE?’ THREAD REAL QUICK, AND POST YOUR IDEAS FOR A FILM VERSION OF LARRY GONICK’S ‘ATTACK OF THE SMART PIES.’
PS: DON’T LET US DOWN.
PPS: WE’LL ALL BE PRAYING FOR THE DISMANTLING OF YOUR THREAD IF YOU DO.
PPPS: JUST KIDDING!
PPPPS: SORT OF.
SEE YA.
Yay! Yet another interesting thread. Loved the Hot Pink Bunnies and the Tower of London articles! I didn’t do much in Summer. I went to a farm in Ohio to be Amish for a week, read a lot, and went back to school. How exciting, lol. Also, thanks for the link to the Faerie Queene!
omg, the first ever thread is still here!!! I have to put this on the “save these threads”!
^_^
Hi, Paul!
veeeeeeeeeeeesiting the paaaaaaast…
this thread ain’t dead!