The Cormanus Chronicles

[Cormanus]

Brisbane - Fernvale - Lowood - Mt Glorious - Brisbane


[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1RIPFAHYtVhy0GnIY01MtKwZXZeJGRvM&usp=sharing]The map

Having spent a morning on some domestic administration and crawling down a few YouTube rabbit hole, I decided to go for a ride. The CB1100 needed some exercise.

It was an unremarkable ride. I went around a loop I ride frequently, although this time in reverse — anti-clockwise as you look at the map. I also rode out through Lowood for a change and, although I didn't end up at Esk via back roads as I intended, I made a stop at the Wivenhoe Dam lookout. The Wivenhoe dam supplies Brisbane with water and also contains a small hydro-electric generator. The water shooting out of the spillway not only powers the dam, but also, I think, keeps the Brisbane River flowing.

After admiring the dam, I rode back over the Brisbane Range — always a treat – and got very hot in badly congested afternoon traffic. It's summer down under.

[url=https://postimg.cc/ykjG64TZ]

[url=https://postimg.cc/dZB50rGY]

And that would have been that except for having one of those moments when the English language suddenly made little-to-no sense to me at all.

I stopped for petrol at Fernvale and was delighted to read on the enormous sign that I would be able to drive through* coffee.

[url=https://postimg.cc/3Wg66D49]

Figuring I could easily wash it off the bike, I rode in and things got better: I was going to be able to ride through* coffee AND food.

[url=https://postimg.cc/K1whFhZ5]

Alas, it was not to be. All I got was the concrete you see in the last picture.

English is such a strange language!
_________

* I refuse to indulge the awful spelling.
A note:Every now and again I look back at a past chronicle and the photos have disappeared. Or I wonder what will become of the forum. So, I've been transferring my ride reports to a site I control. It's a slow process: I get all excited and do a few posts, then lose interest and it languishes. Or I decide to change the format or the template, or I learn more about organising things and start fiddling which means I have to go back and modify what I've done.

It's not complete, but there's enough up now to make it worth telling folks it exists. So, if you're interested in the Cormanus Chronicles — which came about because of this forum — they're at [url=https://cormanus.blogspot.com/.]https://cormanus.blogspot.com/.

Feedback would be welcome.

[the Ferret]

If English is so tough how come I have such a hard time understanding Aussies on TV, like the bloke that announces Moto GP? Lol

[Cormanus]

Do you mean Simon Crafar? The ex rider who's going to be Chairman of the FIM Stewards Panel next year? If so, he's not an Aussie; he's a Kiwi! Be careful or you’ll offend two countries!

A story said to be true: a journalist asked the Prime Minister of New Zealand about the large number of New Zealanders emigrating to Australia. “It’s a good thing,” the PM said, “it raises the IQ of both countries.”

[pdedse]

Brisbane - Fernvale - Lowood - Mt Glorious - Brisbane


[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1RIPFAHYtVhy0GnIY01MtKwZXZeJGRvM&usp=sharing]The map

Having spent a morning on some domestic administration and crawling down a few YouTube rabbit hole, I decided to go for a ride. The CB1100 needed some exercise.

It was an unremarkable ride. I went around a loop I ride frequently, although this time in reverse — anti-clockwise as you look at the map. I also rode out through Lowood for a change and, although I didn't end up at Esk via back roads as I intended, I made a stop at the Wivenhoe Dam lookout. The Wivenhoe dam supplies Brisbane with water and also contains a small hydro-electric generator. The water shooting out of the spillway not only powers the dam, but also, I think, keeps the Brisbane River flowing.

After admiring the dam, I rode back over the Brisbane Range — always a treat – and got very hot in badly congested afternoon traffic. It's summer down under.

[url=https://postimg.cc/ykjG64TZ]

[url=https://postimg.cc/dZB50rGY]

And that would have been that except for having one of those moments when the English language suddenly made little-to-no sense to me at all.

I stopped for petrol at Fernvale and was delighted to read on the enormous sign that I would be able to drive through* coffee.

[url=https://postimg.cc/3Wg66D49]

Figuring I could easily wash it off the bike, I rode in and things got better: I was going to be able to ride through* coffee AND food.

[url=https://postimg.cc/K1whFhZ5]

Alas, it was not to be. All I got was the concrete you see in the last picture.

English is such a strange language!
_________

* I refuse to indulge the awful spelling.
A note:Every now and again I look back at a past chronicle and the photos have disappeared. Or I wonder what will become of the forum. So, I've been transferring my ride reports to a site I control. It's a slow process: I get all excited and do a few posts, then lose interest and it languishes. Or I decide to change the format or the template, or I learn more about organising things and start fiddling which means I have to go back and modify what I've done.

It's not complete, but there's enough up now to make it worth telling folks it exists. So, if you're interested in the Cormanus Chronicles — which came about because of this forum — they're at [url=https://cormanus.blogspot.com/.]https://cormanus.blogspot.com/.

Feedback would be welcome.

Looking at the map, what's that Wivenhoe-Somerset Rd like? It heads north to Esk Kilcoy Rd, which hugs Lake Wivenhoe. That topographical look of the map shows some steep drops down to the water. Is that good riding? And that hiway east of the lake, is it 58? That appears inviting as well.

Brisbane - Fernvale - Lowood - Mt Glorious - Brisbane


[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1RIPFAHYtVhy0GnIY01MtKwZXZeJGRvM&usp=sharing]The map

Having spent a morning on some domestic administration and crawling down a few YouTube rabbit hole, I decided to go for a ride. The CB1100 needed some exercise.

It was an unremarkable ride. I went around a loop I ride frequently, although this time in reverse — anti-clockwise as you look at the map. I also rode out through Lowood for a change and, although I didn't end up at Esk via back roads as I intended, I made a stop at the Wivenhoe Dam lookout. The Wivenhoe dam supplies Brisbane with water and also contains a small hydro-electric generator. The water shooting out of the spillway not only powers the dam, but also, I think, keeps the Brisbane River flowing.

After admiring the dam, I rode back over the Brisbane Range — always a treat – and got very hot in badly congested afternoon traffic. It's summer down under.

[url=https://postimg.cc/ykjG64TZ]

[url=https://postimg.cc/dZB50rGY]

And that would have been that except for having one of those moments when the English language suddenly made little-to-no sense to me at all.

I stopped for petrol at Fernvale and was delighted to read on the enormous sign that I would be able to drive through* coffee.

[url=https://postimg.cc/3Wg66D49]

Figuring I could easily wash it off the bike, I rode in and things got better: I was going to be able to ride through* coffee AND food.

[url=https://postimg.cc/K1whFhZ5]

Alas, it was not to be. All I got was the concrete you see in the last picture.

English is such a strange language!
_________

* I refuse to indulge the awful spelling.
A note:Every now and again I look back at a past chronicle and the photos have disappeared. Or I wonder what will become of the forum. So, I've been transferring my ride reports to a site I control. It's a slow process: I get all excited and do a few posts, then lose interest and it languishes. Or I decide to change the format or the template, or I learn more about organising things and start fiddling which means I have to go back and modify what I've done.

It's not complete, but there's enough up now to make it worth telling folks it exists. So, if you're interested in the Cormanus Chronicles — which came about because of this forum — they're at [url=https://cormanus.blogspot.com/.]https://cormanus.blogspot.com/.

Feedback would be welcome.

English spelling is whacked!...or wacked!

Stop reading now, unless...you can't...

I was an English major...and Spanish, too. Took a number of courses way back when on the history of both, their development, how the written language developed over centuries. While I've forgotten 98% of what I ever learned from the coursework, I retain the curiousity.

So I found myself looking up "drive-through" verses "drive-thru". I already knew that any word that has "ough" has a "sketchy" past. I already knew that English used to be a fairly phonetic language. I didn't know that the spelling "thru" actually preceded "through"!

Found this article:

How 'Thru' Turned Into 'Through'
And Then to 'Thru' Again

>>Near the end of 2010, the Associated Press announced that its stylebook, used by many newspaper editors and writers, would now allow for the use of drive-thru instead of drive-through. At an editor's conference in 2014, there was an audible gasp in the room when this was mentioned (never mind that it was a few years old): the decline of English in action!

Hardly. The spelling of through has gone through a number of changes since it first appeared in English around 700 AD: acquiring an o, moving the r around a bit, claiming a g, dropping each of these things willy-nilly. In fact, the spelling thru predates through by over 100 years. Why?

When English first began its written life, words were spelled according to how they were pronounced. Through began life as the Old English word spelled either as thurh or thuruh. Old English, used from about 500-1100AD, was a completely phonetic language: in other words, you said every letter in the word. That began to change as English was influenced (through invasions and political upheaval) by Old Norse and French. Some words (like through) gained additional spellings that were based on the changing ways that words were pronounced throughout the English-speaking world. Scholars have found over 50 spelling variants of through, everything from thru to thorgh to thorth to throche to through.

How did we go from several dozen spellings of through to just two? Standardization. The introduction of the printing press in England began the process of standardizing spelling in the early 16th century, and this trend slowly continued until the 1800s. Spelling variants continue to exist, of course – witness thru – but we no longer have the abundance of them that we had in the 1500s.

We've come to think of English spelling as static, which is in part why the AP Stylebook's announcement drew so many gasps. All that said, thru is still considered an informal variant of through, despite its history and the AP's limited approval. <<

---

I think there's another thing at play with signs. By nature, signs are designed to attract attention. Normal spellings and formal language on signs may not be noticed as much as misspellings and creative use of the language.

In the U.S. "Kwik Shop" is a name of a corner convenience store, ubiquitous in some regions. Why do they misspell "quick" not once, but two times with the "k"? Likely, because it draws attention. It's cute, quirky maybe.

There's a clothing alteration shop that's called "Sew it Seams"...cute, they've "misspelled" the phrase "so it seems" for obvious reasons.

There's a furniture showroom store called "Shack of Sit". Haha! But that's just a play on words.

There's a Mexican restaurante named "Mi Amigos" in Mesa, AZ. Anyone who knows some Spanish likely sees the error: the possessive "mi" has to be pluralized to "mis" when used with a plural noun (amigos). So a Mexican restaurante purposefully misspells its own name in Spanish. What gives? Well, everybody talks about it, laughs about it...it draws attention.

Now back to that "ough" spelling. Horrific!!! From the following article:

https://englishcoachonline.com/blog/ough-words/

>>
"cough" (which rhymes with "off")
"rough" (which rhymes with "stuff")
"dough" (which rhymes with "no")
"through" (which rhymes with "do")
"thought" (which sounds like "awe")
"plough" (an alternative spelling of "plow")
"hiccough" (an alternative spelling of "hiccup")
"hough" (an alternative spelling of "hock")
"lough" (an alternative spelling of "loch")
"thorough" (which is the schwa sound (ə) all on its own!)

Good luck with saying this sentence:

"A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed." <<

Do you mean Simon Crafar? The ex rider who's going to be Chairman of the FIM Stewards Panel next year? If so, he's not an Aussie; he's a Kiwi! Be careful or you’ll offend two countries!

A story said to be true: a journalist asked the Prime Minister of New Zealand about the large number of New Zealanders emigrating to Australia. “It’s a good thing,” the PM said, “it raises the IQ of both countries.”

OUCH!

[Cormanus]

Thanks for the article, pdedse. I love things about the history of the language. I'll consider myself chastened. Although I still want to drive/ride through/thru coffee and food!

Have you read Bill Bryson's book on the history of the English language? I think it's called Mother Tongue. As I recall, he reckons a lot of American pronunciation is closer than British English to the way people spoke in the 17th century.

That's the road from just north of Fernvale to Somerset Dam. It's a lovely ride, although the speed limit has been reduced at the southern end. Unnecessarily in my view. It's a big dea here where speed limits are strictly enforced. Then the early stages of the road north of Somerset Dam towards Hazeldean is pretty and windy, although the surface could use some work.

58 from Daybro to D'Aguilar is, indeed, a lovely ride, although popular with speed camera police over the weekend.

This is a favourite, easy ride, https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?m...sp=sharing

[Tev62]

Continuing on the theme of misused English. Myself and some buddies do a Sunday Breakfast run and try and find a café for a "Full Irish". (Fried Breakfast). We run out every Sunday, 52 weeks a year (unless the weather is exceptionally bad, it usually takes snow or bad ice to stop us). I go about 12 times a year, my waistline won't survive 52 Full Irish Breakfasts!

At one stop the menu included "Free Range Sausages". Myself and my retired school teacher buddy looked up at each other and simultaneously laughed our heads off. We couldn't resist asking the waitress if the sausages got free rein of the car park and adjoining field outside. That went straight over her head so we gave it up :-)

[pdedse]

Thanks for the article, pdedse. I love things about the history of the language. I'll consider myself chastened. Although I still want to drive/ride through/thru coffee and food!

Have you read Bill Bryson's book on the history of the English language? I think it's called Mother Tongue. As I recall, he reckons a lot of American pronunciation is closer than British English to the way people spoke in the 17th century.

That's the road from just north of Fernvale to Somerset Dam. It's a lovely ride, although the speed limit has been reduced at the southern end. Unnecessarily in my view. It's a big dea here where speed limits are strictly enforced. Then the early stages of the road north of Somerset Dam towards Hazeldean is pretty and windy, although the surface could use some work.

58 from Daybro to D'Aguilar is, indeed, a lovely ride, although popular with speed camera police over the weekend.

This is a favourite, easy ride, https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?m...sp=sharing

Oh, chastisement! That wasn't what I was aiming for! Driving through coffee does sound fun, though.

Thanks for the article, pdedse. I love things about the history of the language. I'll consider myself chastened. Although I still want to drive/ride through/thru coffee and food!

Have you read Bill Bryson's book on the history of the English language? I think it's called Mother Tongue. As I recall, he reckons a lot of American pronunciation is closer than British English to the way people spoke in the 17th century.

That's the road from just north of Fernvale to Somerset Dam. It's a lovely ride, although the speed limit has been reduced at the southern end. Unnecessarily in my view. It's a big dea here where speed limits are strictly enforced. Then the early stages of the road north of Somerset Dam towards Hazeldean is pretty and windy, although the surface could use some work.

58 from Daybro to D'Aguilar is, indeed, a lovely ride, although popular with speed camera police over the weekend.

This is a favourite, easy ride, https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?m...sp=sharing

I may have, such is my memory. I'm "gonna" check and if I haven't, sounds interesting. A similar thing has happened with Spanish. Certain dialects of "Spain" Spanish made it to certain areas of the New World when the Spaniards first arrived in the 1520s. Then other dialects crossed over to other areas 100 years later, and still other dialects 200 years later. This is part of the reason why today there are lots of dialects of Spanish spoken in this hemisphere. They all understand each other, but they all disagree frequently over whether it's "trunk" or "boot" / "lift" or "elevator" (to use English equivalents). And just as British English pronunciation differs substantially from that of American, Canadian, Australian (etc) English, so too are there lots of pronunciations differences of Spanish. Fun!

I don't like the sound of traffic police keeping close tabs on the speed limits. That's one thing that you can easily avoid out in the vastness of the western states of the U.S.

[the Ferret]

Yea English is a funny language. I also majored in English and minored in Spanish. I liked it when I would hunt in south Texas along the Mexican border and would listen to conversations where people would start in Spanish, switch to English, then go back to Spanish all in one sentence.


Ok I looked up the MotoGP announcers, Neil Hogsden a Brit and Michael Laverty from Ireland and Simon Crafar from New Zealand. I can barely understand a word any of them say but Crafar is the easiest to understand.

[suhawk305]

Nice dam pictures Cormanus!

[Cormanus]

Thanks suhawk. I kinda hoped you’d notice.

pdedse, I rode down some of 58 today. I should have said, it’s not a highway/hiway; merely a two lane road. It’s very nice, but the final twisty bit down the hill into Daybro needs work on the surface and the fun police have reduced the speed limit on other bits of it.