DON’T SQUAWK! LET’S WAWK THE WAWK, AND TAWK THE TAWK!

It’s an understatement to say English is a complex language. It masquerades under a multitude of guises. 

I’ll try my best to write wot I mean out right.  Having started this train thought, it’s my rite of passage to explain!  

See…sea…what I meen…ummm, mean? 

After this you might be left with a thoughtful and solemn mien if you understand the following.  You’ll see what I mean…..

“Word” is pronounced “werd”, not “ward”, or “wawd”.   “Word” doesn’t rhyme with Ord, the river in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. 

“Nerd” is “nerd” – why, then, isn’t “word” spelled/spelt… “werd”? 

“Heard” the “herd”?  

Blindly following the herd, many presently are shouting and hustling to be heard - part of the herd to be heard, solving naught.  

Instead of being rabble-rousers causing trouble, perpetrating violence, making matters worse, they ought to lay down their “sawds”. 

Why isn’t “sword” pronounced with the emphasis on “sw” as in “sweet”?

Hear me say…“Here I am!”

Please bear with me as I bare my thoughts; not my soul, nor sole…my thorts…“thawts”.  

If “bear” is pronounced “bair”, and not “beer”, why then is “hear” not “hare”, or “hair”, instead of “heer”?

“Dear” is “deer” - not “dare”, or “dair”.  Should “dare” be “d-ahh”?  “Are” is!  Why isn’t “are”, “air”, not “ahhh”?  “Hair” is “hair”.  Air is “air”, which makes sense because “air” is as it appears, even though air can’t be seen – not in any scene, so don’t tie yourself in a knot if you can’t see it.

 “Coup” is “coo”.  Due to no fault/folt of its own, “coup” lost its “p”; its right to be pronounced as written, and its right to sound like “ou” in “sound” and “couch…ouch!

Hey! After the coup they flew the coop in a coupé knocking over a bale of hay in the process!  

Said” is “sed”.  

And it is said that “shed” is shed, not “shaid. 

One is “wun”; “won” is “wun”.  “Won” doesn’t rhyme with “on”…“wan” does.  How can that be?  

“Two is “too”, and “to”, too!   (I sound like a train running beside a lane. I’ve popped a vein, I think!)

To make peace before I sat down to enjoy a piece of steak, I threw a slab of teak I’d used as a stake through the bushes before the usher saw me. He’d be sore at me.

As I did that, I spotted the “toff” from over the way fill the horse trough with worter/water.   His chilled only child lives down Childers way with his own two children.  

The father lives farther away, but he holds the reins. He reigns; but the kids don’t let him rain on their parade.

They produce the farm produce. They’d never desert the land for dessert, or when drought causes the ground to be like a desert – even if some are of the thought they ought.

The buck does stop with them.  Dear me! The buck skids to a halt when it spies the does on the deer farm nearby, and then it does a bolt. 

About to sow seeds, Joe saw the sow escape the pig pen. Joe was close to the door, but he forgot to close it.  

A dove dove into the shrubs to escape the sow.

 “I thought it’d already sown its wild oats,” Sue, sewing by the sewer, said to Stu.  On her lap were a shirt she’d sewn, and her phone.  Before beginning to sew she made a stew.

Confused yet?  I am…and I’m the one telling the tail…tale!

I’ll wind up now.  I have to close the windows.  A strong wind has begun to blow across the bow, and my bow has fallen from my hair...oh, yeah!

If I cood, I wood wound my wound tightly with a bandage, but I can’t because my aunt would taunt me, and start to rant.

Beef and Barley Stew: Season 1.5 to 2kg chuck or round steak, cut into suitable-sized cubes. Add 1tbs olive oil to large, heavy-based pot; heat over med-high heat; brown beef. Add 300g thinly sliced mushrooms, 8 large carrots, cut into pieces, 6 minced garlic cloves, 4 or 5 potatoes cut into pieces, 1 or 2 sliced celery stalks, 1 or 2 chopped onions, 6c beef stock, 1c dry red wine, 1/4c tomato paste, 2 cans tomatoes, 1tbs Dijon mustard, 1/4c Worcestershire sauce and 1or 2tsp mixed herbs or Italian herbs; stir in 3/4c pearl barley; add 1 or 2 bay leaves. Cover; reduce heat to low; simmer on stove top for a couple of hours until cooked through and full of flavour.  Remove bay leaf/leaves before serving.

Bourbon Steak aka Berbon or Bow-bon Stake: Season 4x3cm sirloin steaks; set aside 20mins. Rub steaks all over with Dijon mustard. Place steaks, 2 at a time, in a hot cast-iron pan over med-high heat; add 1tbs butter. Cook steaks until browned, and cooked as desired doneness; remove from pan; set aside. Repeat with remaining steaks. Bourbon Sauce (Berbon Source!): In small bowl, combine 1/3c bourbon, 1/4c soy sauce, 1tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1/4c packed brown sugar, 1/2tsp each, dried basil and dried rosemary; whisk. Add to hot pan; cook over med-heat for about 2mins, or until slightly reduced. Stir in 2/3^rd cup half milk-half cream; cook a couple of minutes, until thickened. Remove from heat; place steaks back in pan; turn to cover – the steak that is; serve.