New Blogger Joins - meet 'Catfish'
Just thought I'd start the New Year (hope it's a good one for you all) by introducing a friend of mine, Catfish (or 'Harcsabajusz', as he is known in his native Hungarian) who will be joining the Central Budapest Blogging team - that's a generous use of the word 'team' isn't it?
I know what you're thinking, he's flipped. Or perhaps, he's so desperate for company he's got a ventriloquist dummy for a friend. Well, guilty on both counts, so get over it you lot.
Thing is Catfish has been giving me a hard time for years telling me how little I understood about Hungarian culture and life. In fact, he never misses an opportunity to underline and repeat the obvious. Just yesterday he asked the waiter for a menu in English so I could understand it - even after 15 years he thinks I can't read a menu. I'm never quite sure why he does things like this, is it because, as a foreigner, I am essentially stupid? Or is it to make it clear to everyone else that he has foreign friends? Truth is I don't know, so I thought I'd invite him in to speak for himself.
The other thing is Catfish thinks whatever the government does (whatever the current persuasion) is just great. Obviously I have a problem with this, because... well... they are the government (whatever the current persuasion).
Anyway, I don't want to be accused of putting words in his mouth, so I'm hoping Catfish will find time in his busy schedule real soon to explain some of the mysteries of Hungarian life. And as far as I know, Catfish will be the world's first blogging ventriloquists dummy - he's real proud of that.
First I just need to think this through a little more to see if it's a good idea. After all, I don't mind messing around with other people's heads, but messing with my own is a step too far. And I'm still haunted from watching Magic and the dummy Corky years ago.
n.b. just to give credit where it is due, the mustache was borrowed from Norbert Wiczek (for some freakish facial hair, just look at the winner of the 'freestyle' category).
Pestorrhoea rife
It's getting to be a year since I started posting this thing, so I figure I'd do a blog round-up of Blogapest as Pestiside calls it - and I think they are serious about that trademark thingy on their neologisms?. The round-up can wait until the next post, but I do want to add my own unnecassary vocabularly to the already bloated blogging portmanteaus. So here's my lot, and note the trademark on these, they are all mine!!!!!:
- Pestorrhoea: 'the pathological condition of excessively talking about Budapest (ref. logorrhoea. The Hungarian equivalent could be pestmenés).
- Pestipation: 'being unable to write or think of a story about Budapest' (pestrekedés)
- Pestable: 'a potential story about Budapest'
- Pestosphere: 'a synonym (not trademarked!!) for Blogapest. But also extends to Hungarian blogs and the whole blogging social network here.'
- Pesticentric: 'the belief that everything revolves around Budapest'
- Pestitude: 'a state of mind and attitude that leads one to traduce the good works of those in power. A pugnacious attitude to anything in the foreign language press trying to pass itself off as real news.'
The Great Athenian Frog Invasion?
I wasn't going to mention this, but since pestiside has brought to the fore the cultural differences in animal noises, I thought it was a good opportunity to ask for your help. I need your help, because for over 15 years I've known there was really something odd about the noise that Hungarian frogs make, and I have yet to find an explanation. The one explanation I did come to was that sometime in the past there must have been an unrecorded invasion of Athenian frogs into modern day Hungary. Rationally, I know that this invasion didn't happen, but how then did Hungarian frogs develop their unique 'croak'? Well, that's the point, because the noise that Hungarian frogs make isn't unique. Hungarian frogs don't 'ribbet' - oh no. They don't 'croak' either. Hungarian frogs 'brekk-brekk', 'brékekek' and 'brekekex'. Yes, that's right they 'brekekex'. Get it? No?! Tsh. Here goes then... Sometime before 405 B.C.E Athenian morale and self respect was in decline. Putting it blunty the people of Athens were depressed. So, naturally, to cheer themselves up they did what any nation would do - they organised a playwriting competition (the tax payers must have been delighted). So up steps Aristophanes and milking a good thing he had going on the theme of animals - The Wasps (422 B.C.E), The Birds (414 B.C.E) - he penned The Frogs (405 B.C.E), well 'Ranae'. Of course, 'The Frogs' beat the competition. One of the things that the judges partcularly liked was the use of a frog chorus (nothing to do with this). In particular, the frog chorus used the unique sound of Athenian frogs. Which was...? Yes, you got it 'Brekekekex' Unique? Every Hungarian child would recognise an Athenian frog's croak as if it was their very own home spawned variety. What child doesn't know Weöres Sándor's poem 'Békák' (Frogs), that begins:
Brekekex????????? You see, there are still learn-ed papers being written on how uniquely untranslatable this part of the play is:
Brekekex
Brekekex
dialectic of empty names.. an extension to all the linguistic contextualism of the Aristophanic "brekekek...".source'Linguistic contextualism' my segg. And so, my one explanation for how such uniquely Athenian sounding frogs came to Hungary is the historically unrecorded invasion. Before the Romans took over from the celts, before Attila came looking for a new home, before the Turks threatened to overthrow Christendom or Big Brother arrived to destroy the culture of a generation, long long before all of that they made their attack. Successful they lay (squatted) there croaking away contentedly on their lillypads - unnoticed, undetected. Well, undetected until I turned up pale faced and blinking into the Hungarian midsummer sun. The only lead I have on solving this problem is given here:
[In his edition of the work] (Oxford 1993), 219, K. J. Dover provides information on the likely species. sourceSo, if any of you have that edition (what a bargain at only $55!) I would be grateful to know what conclusions Mr. Dover comes to and what if any link there is to Hungarian frogs. And while we're at it, the other thing you can solve for me is how did the buttercup get the Latin name ranunculus? Surely that translates as 'small frog'. Is there some way of detecting someone's preference for butter by holding a young frog under their chin? Or is the ranunculus similar to human's homunculus, the origin and explanation for a frog's sense of consciousness? I can see your eyes clouding over...
