252: Some Things Are Weird

Many of you will know that the pup of the household (Phil) is in somewhere called Tie-land.  This seems to be rather an odd place as it seems as though all the place names in the country have to rhyme with the country name.

So, Phil has been, so far, to Chang Mai (the ‘Mai’ is pronounced ‘My’), Pai (pronounced Pie) and  is currently in Chang Rai (pronounced Rye).

On reading this back, I take back my judgement that Tie-land is weird.  Looking at the explanations I gave you for pronunciation, I noticed that the three words - my, pie and rye - are all pronounced similarly but have different spellings.  And that’s without sigh, sky and guy.  What a strange language is this one of ours - well, yours actually … I’m only borrowing it so I can write this blog.

Dogs would not - indeed could not - dream up anything so crazy snd so complex as the English language - but why would they want to.  We get by with about 27 barks, growls and whimpers - and have no trouble communicating with one another. You (humans) think you are so clever but, in fact, you are vastly over-clever. 

You complicate everything.  

For example, we dogs clean our teeth by eating Denti-stix snd other such food-related aids.  In fact we managed for millennia by just having a diet that did not unduly harm our teeth.  You humans, on the other hand, have invented about 30 different brands of toothpaste and associated cleansing aids.How do you cope in a supermarket with all the choice - 17 different toilet rolls, even 4 types of plastic gloves, 8 types of steak pie, 11 flavours of crisps and multiple varieties of a basic food like bread.  

Madness!

I think Donald Trump should let Elon Musk loose on this situation - reducing variety and saving cost.