100% understandsomeness of English text using 60% madeup words!

Messages
85
Reaction score
2
Points
0
1. is this phenomenon: the understandsomeness of 'madeuplike' words in English, a hallmark of English alone? or are the likes of: German, Dutch, Danish, Welsh, Spanish, French, Walloon, Catalan, Polish etc also likewise blessed with this unsung strenghth?

2. how well do the readers here fare in getting the drift of the following wordplay - which is best brought about by thinking of the text as if it were an underwording to a picture of a streetscene.

3. to my mind the text is not everso poetic. Wondering how it would read in Dutch, German etc...could readers also have a go at translating the hereunder wordplay...

Text:


Through windshot eyen, mudshot bikefarers, some on bikeback and others on foot, follow in the thitherwards footsteps of footfarers thitheralso fording the span of the Thames waters on a newenish, and oft windlocked Millennium footbridge...http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2D7cNlO04aw/SgCWYaUB1NI/AAAAAAAAAnk/yK_YBN80G3A/s400/millennium3.jpg

Taking timeout from homeshopping, footshoppers swarming amidst and amongst downtown outlets...http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/westfield-stratford-city-gets-off-to-smashing-186692

Faregoers alighting, boarding and sheltering at a roadside bus shelter...http://www.picturenation.co.uk/view/info/269734/raining-umbrellas-waiting?s=taxi&page=2

Glossory:

windshot - think: bloodshot + windswept

eyen* (archaic: eyes)

mudshot - think: bloodshot

bikeback - think: horseback

thitherward* (archaic directional)

footfarers - think: footsoldier + seafarer

thitheralso* (obsolete)

fording* - (seld used word for: crossing)

waters* - (archaiclike usage for: river)

newenish - think: olden

windlocked - think: landlocked

homeshopping - (attested modern word)

footshoppers - think: footsoldiers + homeshoppers

alighting* (archaicish)

faregoers - think: fairgoers


Reckon thitherwards would be least understood in *full* meaning by most everyday mothertunge English speakers. Even the meaning of the more madeup words would be better understood, though in truth, the meaningness of thitherward is *half* understood through its -ward directioal endfast.
 
Last edited:
Here's a classic that has been falsely attributed to all sorts of scholarly sources but is in itself interesting:

"I cdn'uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg: the phaonmneel pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rseearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Scuh a cdonition is arppoiatrely cllaed Typoglycemia. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and you awlyas thguoht slpeling was ipmorantt."
 
"I cdn'uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg: the phaonmneel pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rseearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Scuh a cdonition is arppoiatrely cllaed Typoglycemia. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and you awlyas thguoht slpeling was ipmorantt."

Fantastic! I can't believe it but I read right through it without stopping. Very good and amusing so if I feel sleepy I could type right along with spelling to the winds as long as the end letters are correct.
 

This thread has been viewed 4391 times.

Back
Top