Fairy Tale Friday--Ladle Rad Rotten Hut (1940)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I'll begin.

For the last two weeks we have looked at poems in dialect. The first week we looked at a poem in Hoosier dialect from Indiana, then last week we looked at one in Yiddish.

 Anguish Language is a whole different ballgame.


According to Wikipedia:

The Anguish Languish, an ersatz language constructed from English language words, was created by Howard L. Chace, who collected his stories and poems in the book Anguish Languish (Prentice-Hall, 1956).[1] It is not really a language but rather a homophonic transformation created as a work of humor. 

Example: "Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers." This means: Moral: Under no circumstances should little girls stop to talk with strangers.

Chace offered this description: "The Anguish Languish consists only of the purest of English words, and its chief raison d'être is to demonstrate the marvelous versatility of a language in which almost anything can, if necessary, be made to mean something else." His story "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut" is "Little Red Riding Hood" re-written with similar-sounding words substituting for the original folk tale. A professor of French, Chace wrote "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut" in 1940 to demonstrate that the intonation of spoken English is almost as important to the meaning as the words themselves.

If you struggled with the last two weeks of dialect, this may be harder. Personally, I find this one the most fun as you really can make other words sound like English if you put the right intonation and inflection in.

To help you I am including a video where someone recites it. But why not give it a go and try to read it yourself before you listen?

Ladle Rad Rotten Hut 

Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disc ladle gull orphan worry putty ladle rat cluck, an fur disc raison, pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
    Wan moaning, Rat Rotten Hut 's murder colder inset.
    "Ladle rat rotten hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disc ladle basking tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! Dun daily-doily inner florist, an yonder no sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers."
    "Hoe cake, murder," resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, end tickle ladle basking and stuttered oft.
Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, ladle rat rotten hut mitten anomalous woof.
    "Wail, wail, wail," set disc wicket woof, "Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?"
    "Armor goring tumor groin-murder's," reprisal ladle gull. "Grammar's seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles."
    "Oh hoe! Heifer gnats woke," setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, "Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, end den — oh bore!"
    Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, end whinny retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner windrow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh disc abdominal woof lipped honor bet, paunched honor pore oil worming, an garbled erupt. Den disk ratchet ammonol pot honor groin-murder’s nut cup an gnat-gun, any curled ope inner bet.
    Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough ball. "Comb ink, sweat hard," setter wicket woof disgracing is verse.
    Ladle Rat Rotten Hut’s entity bet rum, end stud buyer groin-murder's bet.
"O Grammar!" crater ladle gull historically, "water bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!"
    "Battered lucky chew whiff, sweat hard ," setter bloat-Thursday woof, wetter wicket small honors phase.
    "O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomalous prognosis!"
    "Battered small your whiff, doling," whiskered dole woof, ants mouse worse waddling.
    "O Grammar, water bag mouser gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!"
   Daze worry on-forger-nut ladle gull's lest warts. Oil offer sudden, caking offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disc hoard-hoarded woof lipped own pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt.

That's all for this week. Stay tuned next week where we explore some humorous versions of this tale.