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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Aesop in Words of One Syllable
gweinberg wrote 13 hours 18 min ago:
I can see the advantage of using common words, but isn't it pretty
silly to insist on them all being one syllable? The very first words
(most people) learn are tow syllables (albeit the same one repeated),
right?
esafak wrote 19 hours 23 min ago:
This is a good idea. I am working through the 1912 translation of this
by V. S. Vernon Jones with my child, and I was taken aback by how dense
its Victorian English is. This is the translation that is currently
distributed by Simon & Schuster. Consider THE GOODS AND THE ILLS:
"There was a time in the youth of the world when Goods and Ills entered
equally into the concerns of men, so that the Goods did not prevail to
make them altogether blessed, nor the Ills to make them wholly
miserable. But owing to the foolishness of mankind the Ills multiplied
greatly in number and increased in strength, until it seemed as though
they would deprive the Goods of all share in human affairs, and banish
them from the earth. The latter, therefore, betook themselves to heaven
and complained to Jupiter of the treatment they had received, at the
same time praying him to grant them protection from the Ills, and to
advise them concerning the manner of their intercourse with men.
Jupiter granted their request for protection, and decreed that for the
future they should not go among men openly in a body, and so be liable
to attack from the hostile Ills, but singly and unobserved, and at
infrequent and unexpected intervals. Hence it is that the earth is full
of Ills, for they come and go as they please and are never far away;
while Goods, alas! come one by one only, and have to travel all the way
from heaven, so that they are very seldom seen."
If Victorian children were really able to parse that, we have
regressed! I have to rephrase each fable in simpler terms before mine
understands it. Alice in Wonderland was a similar affair, and that was
with the abridged version!
URI [1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%86sop%27s_Fables_(V._S._Ver...
bitshiftfaced wrote 14 hours 39 min ago:
There's a big gap in the market for someone to do for Aesop's Fables
what was done for the "New Revised Standard Version" of the bible.
They went back as far as they could to the source material and did a
high quality modern translation.
vintagedave wrote 17 hours 27 min ago:
Hypotactic sentences! I love them, and feel they're quite elegant. I
read sentences like this as kid :)
URI [1]: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/parataxis-vs-hypotaxis-...
teraflop wrote 20 hours 15 min ago:
Neat. I wonder if this was an inspiration for Guy Steele's famous
"Growing a Language" talk, or if he came up with the same idea
independently.
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw6TaiXzHAE
n_kr wrote 1 hour 53 min ago:
You made my day with this link
DiggyJohnson wrote 6 hours 58 min ago:
Fantastic link. Does anyone know how he produced his animated slides
and how they were controlled during the talk?
vintermann wrote 21 hours 8 min ago:
I used to make a game out of that. Use words with just one word sound,
and see how long it takes them to catch on.
As a tool for kids, I don't buy it. If you slip and use a word with two
or more word sounds, that won't make it hard. So it's not a rule you
need to use.
I had not heard of A. L.'s books, though. As word game, it's fun
(though she cheats!). As school tool, as I said I don't buy it.
chrisweekly wrote 17 hours 15 min ago:
There's a party game called "Poetry for Neanderthals" that's exactly
that (use only monosyllabic words to describe something when
prompted). I really like it.
x______________ wrote 20 hours 25 min ago:
"..a word with two or more word soun-ds"
> ..a word with more than one sound
Did I win? :)
tylershuster wrote 19 hours 24 min ago:
Most all words have more than one sound. There are big sounds and
small sounds though. The big parts - "word sounds" â that we
don't want, the word "sounds" has just one. It needs no break. You
might say that the word "school" has two but that word has just one
as well.
DiggyJohnson wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
Well said. And same with âschoolsâ and then even more with
âschooledâ. But just for those who word it in a way that mind
the rule.
pinko wrote 21 hours 34 min ago:
Fascinating: the author cheats!
E.g., "butch-ers" appears*, as if hyphenation makes it not a
two-syllable word!
*
URI [1]: https://archive.org/details/aesopsfablesinwo00aeso/page/12/mod...
chrismorgan wrote 18 hours 52 min ago:
I donât know whatâs going on, but that doesnât match [1] .
Your source has âthe dog and the shadowâ (which subsequently uses
âsha-dowâ) and âthe oxen and the butchersâ (and note that
âoxenâ is not hyphenated). The Gutenberg edition instead has
âthe child and the brookâ in their stead, and âthe bear in the
woodâ inserted after the next one.
URI [1]: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/76243/pg76243-images.ht...
scandox wrote 21 hours 15 min ago:
No but it might help a younger reader and it avoids an absurd
consistency
pinko wrote 20 hours 2 min ago:
I don't disagree, but I still think it's funny that, not six pages
in, they compromise the central conceit...
josefritzishere wrote 21 hours 51 min ago:
If you look at the back of that book, there was a whole series of "in
Words of One Syllable" books. Their revamp of Robinson Crusoe required
some hyphenation to meet the criteria. All were published by the Henry
Altemus Company of Philadelphia around the year 1900.
URI [1]: https://henryaltemus.com/series/series137.htm
stronglikedan wrote 18 hours 9 min ago:
Even this one required hyphenation as pointed out by another
commenter (search "butch-er").
JKCalhoun wrote 21 hours 58 min ago:
I prefer viewing the referenced book on Archive.org than Project
Gutenberg: [1] (Personally, I always hated "the moral" being spelled
out at the end of each story. Oh well.)
URI [1]: https://archive.org/details/aesopsfablesinwo00aeso/page/6/mode...
cckolon wrote 22 hours 2 min ago:
Reminds me of Randall Monroeâs obsession with Simple English
URI [1]: https://xkcd.com/547/
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