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It had been a tough match and some of the golf had been of a low standard. Effort had been required to bite off, unspoken, four-letter expletives to preserve the dignity of the Wheatsheaf Enclosure. In the Spikes Bar afterwards, conversation turned to four-letter words.
“Do you know the connexion between yogh and wasp?” asked one Member whose Specialist Subject is Orthoepy. The jaws of his playing companions dropped; bemused, they shook their heads. Taking that to mean that they were all ears, our orthoepist continued. “You may have wondered why our esteemed Hon Treasurer Emeritus Ian Menzies pronounces his name Mingiss. That is because he spells his name with a yogh. Yogh was a Middle English letter pronounced roughly as “yuh”. Five hundred years ago, Menzies would have been pronounced Men-yuhss. Caxton’s printing invention was catching on but the use of yogh was fast dying out. As a poor substitute, zed was used by printers whenever they needed to represent the yogh.”
The All Ears nodded that they thought they understood but wondered where the wasp comes in. “Ah”, said the orthoepist, “it is all explained on the website of the bookseller John Menzies.”
There wis a young lassie named Menzies,
That asked her aunt whit this thenzies.
Said her aunt wi a gasp,
"Ma dear, it's a wasp,
An you're haudin the end whaur the stenzies!"
“Oh look, there’s Angus MacKenyie just come in with Tam Dee-(y)ell.”
P. S. Ian points out that the question is not "Why is Menzies pronounced Mingiss?" but should be "Why is Mingiss spelt Menzies?" Quite right, too!
Wednesday, 30 March, 2011
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