WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 15, 2021 Spinning Beulah’s Bun By Steve Eskew In The Bald Soprano , the avant-garde French playwright, Eugène Ionesco, took a satirical look at the “disgusting defects of the English language.” Oh, bloody bad idea. The play’s mocking tone infuriated many a Brit. When asked why he chose the English tongue to poke fun at, Ionesco snorted, “Retaliation. I grew weary of hearing the British smirk ‘pardon my French’ as they cursed. Humph. To native French speakers, English words sound like dogs barking.” No one hated Ionesco’s play more than my cousin Beulah. She suffered through Ionesco’s attack on our language only because she and I were best friends and I was currently an actor in that play. Beulah, an English teacher, worships the English language and detests the slightest deviation from standard pronunciations. Since I’m a born deviator and a proud dunce, she’s constantly correcting my diction. Every blessed syllable. When I was cast as a cockney named Doolittle i
Posts
Showing posts from December, 2021