Northwich u3a monthly meeting - March 2026
The speaker this month was Neil Sheldon, who gave a talk entitled, ‘English – A Very Curious Language’. Neil is Vice Chair UK Linguistics Olympiad and explained that the UK team has been champions for the last two years.
Neil began by giving us some facts and figures. There are approximately 370 million native English speakers, and depending on which website is chosen, the third most prolific language. It is, however, the most spoken language out of 6-7,000 different languages in the world. Many members in the audience were surprised to learn that there are 14 different native languages spoken in the British Isles, including Sign Language, Gaelic and Cornish, (though there is debate about the question of living speakers and use of the latter). English derives broadly speaking from a Germanic structure and much French and Latin vocabulary and there are many curiosities.
Pronunciation and spelling are, as Neil pointed out, very interesting. His examples were the use of ‘ough’ in words such as through, bough, thought, thorough, lough and hiccough, and the sound ‘oo’ as in two, to, too, blue, flow, through, room and pollute, as well as the words: good, book, poor, brooch and blood. An amusing example was ‘ghoti’, a creative English respelling of the word ‘fish’, used to illustrate the irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation; gh as in ‘enough’, o as in women and ti as in station.
Members learned about ‘Eggcorns and Mondegreens’. An eggcorn is a phrase or word altered to something that sounds familiar in order to make sense, e.g. ‘damp squib’ is ‘damp squid’ and ‘ to the manor born’ is ‘to the manner born’. A mondegreen is something misheard and comes from the Scottish ballad, ‘The Bonnie Earl of Moray’.
‘Thae slain the Earl o’ Moray, And laid him on the green.’ Became ‘Thae slain the Earl o’ Moray and Lady Mondegreen’.
This example was followed by a very amusing segment of misheard song lyrics such as Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen – ‘Is this just Battersea?’ (Is this just fantasy?), Credence Clearwater Revival – ‘there’s a baboon on the right’ (there’s a bad moon on the rise) and The Beatles – ‘A Girl with Colitis goes by’ ( a girl with kaleidoscope eyes).
Silent letters, personal pronouns, Tok Pisin, rhyming slang, Polari, some etymology and grammar were all part of the talk.
Neil’s premise was that English is a very curious language and he definitely proved his point in an entertaining fashion. He took us back to our schooldays with grammar rules and amused us with misheard lyrics. His presentation was enjoyed by all.
Come and join us at the next meeting on 15th April 2026 at 2pm in Owley Wood Recreation Club, Weaverham, when Les Pickford will tell us about, ‘Cartoons and how to draw them! ‘.