1. Strange Noises
There we were sitting on comfy pillows in the “pod” at the end of the fourth grade hall. I was on a huge one with another comfortably pushing against my back. I had a mic around my throat to compensate for my weak voice and a bottle of water to ease the pain. The kids were arrayed around me on square pillows on the floor which they would grab and bring up to the front so as to be as close as possible, except for the quiet kids who were content to sit silently towards the back listening more intently that the rest to every word I said.
It starts out this way, “Twas brillig, and the slithey loves…”.
And then, “Il brilligue, les toves rubricieux…”.
And finally, “Ex brillig war, die schlichten Toven…”.
Every time we sit down like this — every single time, because each year it’s a different batch of fourth graders — their eyes widen and their jaws drop, and they start glancing at each other to see if the others are thinking what they’re thinking.
2. Strange Spelling
“Ein-zwei, ein-zwei, und durch und durch, die vorpal Schwerd zerschnifferschnuck!”
Holding up my hand as if I were holding a sword, I ask them what’s happening?
“The sword!” they say. “One-two. One-two!” some of them shout.
Right! “One-two, one-two, and through and through…”
And then I stop. In the sudden silence I stare at each one of them and lean slowly forward. “How do you spell ‘through’?” I ask.
They love this. They know the answer. They know it’s a trick. And they spell the word correctly, although in their zeal, they often forget the ‘r’.
Right! And then I stop again and lean again. “But… what… is up… with the ‘gh’!?”
They know what I’m talking about. You do, too. They’ve wondered the same thing, although I suspect they’ve never heard an adult ridicule it in precisely that way.
3. The Evolution of Language
Imagine, I tell them, that there’s someone in a village who speaks old German. So the word ‘through’ to them is ‘durch’. Say it with me: durch.
They all repeat it as if this is a German class. And they get the ‘ch’ right, relishing this sound that no English word lets them make.
But now, I say, imagine that that person has children, and that child has cousins, and those cousins pronounce the word differently, with some kind of accent. They say ‘th’ instead of ‘d’, because… well because their tongues are lazy. So they say ‘thurch’. Say both of the words with me: durch, thurch.
We say the words together.
And now, those cousins have children who have cousins who have children. And their tongues get tired of saying ‘ch’, so they pronounce the word, thur. Say them with me, durch, thurch, thur.
And the follow along again.
And then, I say, imagine that some of their children or their cousins get confused about the word. Imagine that they switch the ‘r’ and the ‘u’, so that they pronounce the word ‘thru’. Say them with me one more time, durch, thurch, thur, thru.
And so, one more time they repeat the words with me.
Durch, thurch, thur, thru.
Did you hear that!? What was that last word? Where did we end up?
Their eyes open wide.
4. Archeologists of English
Do you know what archeology is? (Some of them do.) Digging and dusting and sifting thru stuff to discover things about past civilizations.
Do you know what paleontology is? (Some of them do.) Digging and dusting and sifting thru stuff to discover things about extinct species.
What did we just do? We dug and dusted and sifted thru words. And we discovered something buried in the language we speak. We discovered something about English. We discovered that buried all around us in the words we know is evidence about the past. We discovered that English used to be something like German.
You, I say to them, are archeologists of English.
And with that, it is usually time for them to go to the next Culture Fair station.
