Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Irritable Vowel Syndrome

I spent ten years in New Zealand (for the same offence today you’d probably get eight and be out in four) and when I got back to England I found that when I asked for a pen, someone would give me a pin. I had caught IVS – the dreaded Irritable Vowel Syndrome.
It’s an illness that affects all Kiwis; it’s highly contagious, and the only cure is expatriation. We saw how quickly it affected Ian Botham and David Gower when they covered the recent series of Tist Metches.
You don't feel a thing - it strikes at your vowel movements: IVS sufferers transform the letter “a” into an “e”; “e” into “i”; “i” into “o”; “o” into “u”; “u” becomes “a” - or disappears completely. Thus: Wan p’lls beck th’ cendlewock bidsprid, gits ap, drissed, end cetches thu bas tu wurk. Somple, usn’t ut?

Thet’s ut for thus wik – but you can see how cetching ut us - must stop now before my Spellcheck overheats. Next week: double vowels - “oe”, “ou” etc., and how to distinguish a Kiwi from an Oz. (Th’ Kiwis are the wans thet lit as wun Tist Metches.)

4 comments:

joe lance said...

I was in NZ nearly 20 years ago, and my friend (I guess they'd say "mate") and I (both Yanks) caught this IVS very quickly. To this day, we answer in the affirmative as: "Yeh."

We also spent time in Australia on the same tour, and there is certainly a difference.

Tuscan Traveller said...

Hi Joe, I trust yeh is two syllables! The official (Kiwi) version of the difference is that the Kiwis are the ones that can read and write.

Anonymous said...

I used to work with two Kiwis who called this the "unternit"

Tuscan Traveller said...

When I was there we used simephur.