(* The members of SPAL are the persons who have written to the author concerning the Anguish Languish, especially the thousands who wrote to request copies of LADLE RAT ROTTEN HUT after Sir Arthur Godfrey's inimitable reading of it, on his television show. The society is very poorly organized, in fact few of the members even know they belong. There are no officers, no meetings, no convention and, worst of all, from the point of view of the author and founder, no dues.)
In keeping with its lofty ideals and its slogan, ANGUISH FOR EVERYBODY, the Society is sponsoring this little text, which has three aims:
1. To improve the public's understanding of the
Anguish Languish.
2. To improve the academic standing of the Anguish
Languish.
3. To improve the social and financial standing
of the society.
Policemen and Magicians
What Anguish Really Is
Are There Any Good Reasons to Study Anguish?
1. Anguish is Fun.
You and your friends can make a game
out of learning Anguish, and you'll have fun developing your own style
and observing each other's efforts. How to begin will be explained later.
2. Anguish Languish means verbal economy.
If words can be made to do double,
triple, or even quadruple duty, it is obvious that we don't need so many
of them. Wouldn't it be a comfort to know that in the event of some unpredictable
disaster wiping out half of our English vocabulary, we could, if we had
learned Anguish, get along nicely with what we had left? (Whether or not
such a calamity is likely to occur seems entirely beside the point; in
times like these one should be prepared for any emergency.)
3. Anguish helps out in certain social situations.
People who aren't sure of themselves
should learn Anguish. Suppose you have been asked to dinner by the
president of your company and his wife. Since you haven't met your
hostess, you have spent some time, before going, thinking up something
to say that will really interest her. Finally you decide to ask,
during the dinner:
"Mrs. Bellowell, didn't I hear that
your brother Henry was discovered to be in collusion with those election
crooks?"
The moment arrives, but you no sooner
get her attention than you have sudden misgivings. Too late to change your
subject, you slip deftly into Anguish:
"Mrs. Bellowell... deaden are hair
ditcher broader Hennery worse dish-cupboard toe bang collision wet dozer
liquor-chin crocks?"
Chances are that everyone will be
so fascinated by the graceful form of your question that not even your
hostess will attach much importance to what you've asked.
4. Anguish relieves that terrible craving to tell
dialect stories.
People who are addicted to telling
dialect stories, or chronically frustrated because they can't tell them
without Scotch brogue or Brooklynese getting mixed up with the Deep South,
will be overjoyed with Anguish. Anguish is definitely not a dialect,
since it consists only of unchanged English words which anyone can pronounce.
By imparting a delicate and indefinably exotic accent to one's speech,
however, it not only provides a socially acceptable substitute for telling
dialect stories, but adds to one's personal charm.*
(* ANGUISH ANONYMOUS, an organization of former dialect story tellers, sponsored by SPAL, can be called in difficult cases.)
5. Anguish improves your English.
As your anguish vocabulary increases,
you'll find that your English vocabulary does, too, but you must be careful
not to mix them up- something which people orphan do when they begin to
use words accordion to the way they sound rather than how they're spelled.
Words which are rare in English are often common enough in Anguish, so
you have new opportunities to see them. Suppose you're spending a week-end
reciting nursery rhymes in Anguish to a happy group of children or immature
adults, and come across SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE, A POCKET FULL OF RYE.
In Anguish, this, of course, is SINKER SUCKER SOCKS PANTS, APOCRYPHAL AWRY.
This will give you an unexpected chance to use the last two words.
You'd be surprise to know how many
people haven't the faintest idea about what a xyster is until they hear
a SPAL member talking about his fodder, murder, broader, and xyster.
This makes them want to look xyster up. When they do, they
find that, although xyster* in Anguish may mean sister, in
English it's nothing in the world but a common raspatorium. Now raspatoria,
and, therefore xysters are important surgical instruments, nice to know
about before being scheduled for an aberration.
Speaking of xysters, hominy people
know what higglery is? Very few, yet it occurs in the Anguish Languish
version of something as well known as:
“Murder, mare
ergo art toe swarm?
“Yap, mar
doling dodder,
Hank your
clues honor higglery larme
An dun gore
norther warder!”
While you're looking up higglery,
you might find larme, just a few pages away in Webster's Unabridged.
(* The plural of xyxter in Anguish, is cisterns.
See, in this book the story Center Alley)
6. Practical Anguish
Anguish can be used for a group study
at parties and entertainments; as a psychological test of something or
other (we don't know just what*), and as practice material in Speech and
Typing classes.
(* A research psychologist plans to use Anguish Languish to provide data for a study entitled: "Individual and Sex Differences in Configurational Perception of Artificially Contrived but Phenomenologically Comprehensible Auditory Stimuli." This sounds as if it should mean something.)
How Can One Learn Anguish?
1. Read everything in this text aloud, and preferably in a group. Make a game of it. You'll find it easier to understand Anguish when you hear it than when you see it. If you have trouble, listen to someone else read it to you, preferably someone who doesn't quite know what he's reading. This often gives the best effect. Watch what happens when the listeners understand better than the reader.
2. Don't try to read too fast and be sure to give all words their usual English pronunciation, regardless of the new meaning the word has acquired. An accurate pronunciation and good intonation are most effective.
3. Don't worry if you seem to have suddenly acquired a slight accent; your friends will tell you that this is most attractive.
The first item in this collection is a story familiar to all readers - LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. Or, as you can probably say now in Anguish, LADLE RAT ROTTEN HUT.
Heresy ladle furry starry toiling udder warts - warts welcher altar girdle deferent firmer once inner regional virgin. This sentence means: "Here is a little fairy story told in other words - words which are altogether different from the ones in the original version."
ORIOLE RATTY? DEN LESS GAT STUTTERED!