Forgotten English
Yep, I'm referring to my page-a-day calendar.
And you thought Quayle spelled "potato" wrong...
The history blurb on yesterday's page said:
On this date in 1750, Lord Chesterfield stressed the importance of proper spelling to his son Philip: "Orthography is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters or a gentleman, that one false spelling may fix a ridicule upon him for the rest of his life; and I know a man of quality who never recovered the ridicule of having spelled wholesome without the w." Long before American Vice-President Dan Quayle's notorious spelling mishap, William Walsh's Book of Literary Curiosities (1900) reported on a Dr. Wayland of Philadelphia, who once asked rhetorically, "What does ghoughphtheightteeau spell? Well, according to the following rules, it spells potato. Gh stands for p, as in the last letters of hiccough; ough for o, as in dough; phth for t, as in phthisis; eigh stands for a, as in neighbor; tte stands for t, as in gazzette; and eau stands for o, as in beau. Thus you have p-o-t-a-t-o."
The word of the day, by the way, was "grabble," for which the definition is, "In digging potatoes, to remove large ones without disturbing the small."
And you thought Quayle spelled "potato" wrong...
The history blurb on yesterday's page said:
On this date in 1750, Lord Chesterfield stressed the importance of proper spelling to his son Philip: "Orthography is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters or a gentleman, that one false spelling may fix a ridicule upon him for the rest of his life; and I know a man of quality who never recovered the ridicule of having spelled wholesome without the w." Long before American Vice-President Dan Quayle's notorious spelling mishap, William Walsh's Book of Literary Curiosities (1900) reported on a Dr. Wayland of Philadelphia, who once asked rhetorically, "What does ghoughphtheightteeau spell? Well, according to the following rules, it spells potato. Gh stands for p, as in the last letters of hiccough; ough for o, as in dough; phth for t, as in phthisis; eigh stands for a, as in neighbor; tte stands for t, as in gazzette; and eau stands for o, as in beau. Thus you have p-o-t-a-t-o."
The word of the day, by the way, was "grabble," for which the definition is, "In digging potatoes, to remove large ones without disturbing the small."