Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Disease of Distraction.

Okay, I'm now totally distracted thanks to footnoteMaven. I regularly read both of her blogs, and now she has infected me with her distraction disease. Lately fM has been distracted from her regular blogging because she has been "Wordle-ing" and "Dialectizing". Yes, I said Wordle-ing. Yes, I said Dialectizing. And yes, I am doing both!

I have your attention now, don't I? You want to know about these things. What is a Wordle? Wordle is a website by Jonathan Feinberg that takes words from your blog or whatever you want to enter, and it creates a word cloud. This is one I have created for LOOKING4ANCESTORS.




And if that wasn't enough fun, you can also visit Samuel Stoddard's website The Dialectizer.

Here's a bit from my post about The Dog Who Could Tell Time. It has been dialectized to Cockney.

There are cat blokes. There are dog blokes. The chuffin' Lake side of the family are definitely dog blokes. We luv dogs, right, especially border collies. Me current dog Trooper is a border collie, do wot guvnor!
As a yung girl, our family 'ad a border collie mixed breed, right, alffough she behaved and 'ave a looked like a purebred. Her name were Specs. Me mum choose the chuffin' name. O'course me bruvver and I wanted sumfink like Fluffy, Potches; yer cop the idea. Well, my mum would 'ave none of that. She decided that us new puppy would be named Specs because it 'ave a looked ter her that the bleedin' black lines 'round the puppy's mince pies resembled spectacles. So, there yer 'ave it, init?


And this paragraph has been dialectized into Jive.


Now, Specs wuz some waaay coo' dog. What it is, Mama! She could tell time. Every night she would obediently honky jibe on de little mat next t'my mom's side uh de bed. Once Mom wuz asleep, Specs would sneak into de livin' room, jump down on de couch and go t'sleep. Jes hang loose, brud. Come mo'nin', Specs knowed whut time Mom's alarm clock would go off. So, she would jump off de couch, return t'my parents' bedroom, honky jibe back waaay down on de mat and act as if she had been dere all night. Man! When Mom's alarm went off, Specs would raise ha' little brother and honky haid, and look at Mom as if t'say "Good mo'nin'! Right on! I've been here all night! Right on!"Specs also knowed whut time mah' broda' and ah' would mosey on down crib fum farm. Everyday, she would go t'de front windows in de livin' room and look fo' us comin' waaay down de street. Man!


I'm quite tempted to dialectize all of my blog posts. This is just too much fun!
Now that I have been totally distracted even more than before, I hope you will visit these two websites and become distracted too!