Sunday 25 July 2010

Five things a writer uses every day - Anne Rooney

1. a
2. e
3. i
4. o
5. u

(There is a sixth, which is the internet. This should have been up on Friday but I have been internet-deprived for six days and only managed to post it today by driving to Starbucks and paying for unnecessary food in order to use free wifi.)

Besides being extremely useful glue for sticking consonants together into words, AIEOU was used as a cryptic symbolic device by the Habsburg emperors. Frederick III introduced it in the fifteenth century and used it as a 'Frederick woz 'ere' signature on buildings and such like. Just before he died, he said it stood for Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich untertan - All the world is subject to Austria.

6 comments:

Miriam Halahmy said...

Brilliant. And I should have posted tomorrow but posted today by mistake. Soz.

Unknown said...

DEDICATION!
Posting early?
EXTREME DEDICATION!
You've made vowels seem a lot more interesting than Countdown ever did

Andrew Strong said...

A pedant writes: one notable exception being George Perec in 'A Void' (no letter 'e'), and other Oulipo lipogram constrained scribblers as well as anyone who doesn't use the Phoenician/Greek alphabet.

Colonialist said...

Writers tend to use 'Ayee!' a lot as a comment regarding their financial predicaments, and 'IOU' to people they borrow from to try and get out of them? So writing does incite one to commit vowelence...

Stroppy Author said...

Thank you, Colonialist, that's true :-)

Andrew, to answer pedantry with pedantry, I didn't say *all* writers used these every day, I said *a* writer, and didn't specify one. Clearly not Perec.

Andrew Strong said...

Living in Wales I'm also aware of the additional Welsh vowels - notably 'w' and 'y' - for example in a place name like Cwmystwyth. Say that with a mouth full of mash.