Woody’s Dog Blog

Ma’s just got back from the vets. And guess what? I didn’t go! For the first time in ages, it was nothing to do with me. Hurray! It was my cat brother Louis’s turn today; he’s been weeing in the house when he shouldn’t have done apparently. Hurrah! Ha ha! Don’t get me wrong, I love Louis to bits, but I’m flicking relieved it’s not me in that room today. Ma thought he had diabetes because he’s a bit fat, but apparently he’s got cystitis. I say apparently, because although the vet man is very nice and all, Ma can’t understand all of what he’s saying because his Spanish accent is thicker than Spam. There are lots of ‘pardon?’s and ‘mmm?’s and quite a few ‘what’s he got again?’s, and the odd ’sorry was that once a day or once he dies?’.

I don’t know why everyone can’t speak the same language - it would be so much easier wouldn’t it? Each generation’s linguistic modernisations, abbreviatations and bastardisations always aggravate the elders. What used to be ‘haven’t’ is now ‘ain’t', who you thought was your ‘friend’ is now a ‘gr8m8′, what was once fat is now genetic (or phat which is wicked wot used to be bad before it was good) and what was once a ‘house’ is now unaffordable and at risk. The humble letter ‘aitch’ has sneezed its way into the 21st century as ‘haitch’ quicker than you can say ‘halitosis’. Ma said that the boys (nee babies) will grow up with ‘haitch’ in their halphabet over her dead body. That their old-fashioned aitches may alienate them from their m8’s (don’t even mention apostroppy’s) doesn’t seem to worry Ma as much as propriety and the current order of things. Well Ma, all I can say is:

‘Now lat hym riote al the nyghte or leve.
And for ther is no theef withoute a lowke,
That helpeth hym to wasten and to sowke
Of that he brybe kan or borwe may,
Anon he sente his bed and his array
Unto a compeer of his owene sort,
That lovede dys, and revel, and disport,
And hadde a wyf that heeld for contenance
A shoppe, and swyved for hir sustenance.’*

Is it a dyslexic? Is it a drunk? Is it a Swede? No! It’s Chaucer! That’s progression poppet. Lol.

* That is in fact an excerpt from A Cook’s Tale. Chaucer couldn’t be bothered to finish it apparently. Don’t blame him either.