Glass Maze Every jumbled pile of person

Posted
27 August 2003

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Why English Totally Kicks Ass

English is the best language on earth. And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve come to this conclusion after some pretty exhaustive research into all of the other 12 or 13 languages on the planet. I picked up the Basque edition of The Little Prince the other day, for example, and found it quite dull, far duller than the English version. It might have been a bit more exciting if I understood a single word of Basque, but the fact that those people insist on writing and speaking unintelligible gibberish isn’t my problem. It’s their problem.

And don’t even get me started on French. Is it just me, or do lots of words in French sound suspiciously similar to their English equivalents? Chaise and chair, chat and cat, perdu and Perdue, amour and armor, and lots more. Who do they think they’re kidding? I mean, I understand that it’s hard to come up with your own language, all that vocabulary and grammar and punctuation and stuff, but jeez, at least give some credit to the people you’re ripping off. Call it Frenglish, or something. And on those few occasions when the French try to make up their own words, they totally screw it up. You know what they call a swimming pool? A piscine. Yeah. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I came across a large body of water called a piscine, my first thought wouldn’t be: “Hey, that looks like a fun thing to jump into!” Right? Am I totally off base here?

Ok, so scratch Basque and French. German is cool, because no matter what you say it sounds like you want to kill the person you’re talking to and then rip off their arm and use it to bludgeon the rest of their family to death. But it’s too sticky. I mean the words stick together. Seriously, they merge words into bigger and bigger words. It’s like they can’t help themselves. I once saw a word in German that spanned three pages. I asked this German guy what it meant, but when he started telling me I thought he was going to kill me so I high-tailed it out of there. I looked it up the other day. It means swimming pool.

Basque, French, German … that’s about it, I think. No, wait! Belgian. Belgian is a funny language, because it’s waffle based. Really, it’s all variations on the word waffle. When a Belgian asks you where the bathroom is, he says: “Waffle waffloovira waffle waff? Le?” Seriously. I once spent a day in Belgium, for research, and I just went around saying “Waffle waffle waffle waffle”, and everybody thought they understood what I was talking about. Sometimes I’d make it sound like a question: “Waffle waffoolyara wa?” And sometimes I’d get all peremptory with it and shit: “Waffle wavorfivaffle!” I fit right in, it was totally cool. But still, it’s not much of a language.

Then there’s Australian. Nicole Kidman speaks Australian, I think, and Nicole Kidman is a total babe, so it’s got that going for it. Plus it sounds sort of like English, and that’s good too. The problem with Australian is that, in order to speak it correctly, you’ve got to pretend you’ve got a small rodent wedged way up in your mouth, somewhere near the back of your throat. Seriously. What the hell are those people saying? I went to see Crocodile Dundee for research the other day. First of all, that’s a bad movie. It’s not a good movie. Second of all, whenever “Crocodile” said anything, I couldn’t understand a god damn word. Every so often he’d mention shrimps and barbies, and he’d call everyone mate, that I understood. But beyond that, nada. Nothing. What kind of language is that? It’s no kind of language.

Ok, I think I’ve made my point. There are other languages out there, but I’m pretty sure they all suck. English rules, end of story. So if you’re reading this, but you can’t understand it because you don’t speak English, then learn English dude! It’s not that hard. Start with small words, like eat and prong and monster truck rally, and then work your way up to stuff like plinth and dromedary. In no time at all you’ll be telling all your friends about that cool camel statue you saw at the monster truck rally, and you’ll be doing it in English. Now wouldn’t that be cool? Yes. Yes, it would be.


3 Comments

Posted by
sahalie
28 August 2003 @ 12pm

i especially like the belgian waffle waffle waffle thing. oh great my boss just walked past and gave a giggling me the raised eyebrow look. i’m trying to work here, damnit, and you keep making me laugh. thanks a lot :)


Posted by
Fenris
31 August 2008 @ 10pm

…Amour means “love”.

HAHA the waffle thing was hilarious!!

“Waffle waff wafflivera waff waf?” Haha no that’s cruel.


Posted by
Grutan
22 January 2009 @ 2pm

”German is cool, because no matter what you say it sounds like you want to kill the person you’re talking to and then rip off their arm and use it to bludgeon the rest of their family to death.”

Best sentence ever, you should write a book!

-G.


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