Ask Webponce - The Return
Mister Pleasant asks….
Dear Mr Webponce (if that IS your name),
For years I’ve been treated as a simpering dunderhead for daring to suggest that “Nestle’s Milky Bar” used to rhyme with “Trestle’s Milky Bar” when I were a youngster, not the laughably more exotic “Cress Lay’s Milky Bar” as it seems to now.
Are you the only one who can restore what little dignity I had, over this matter?
Yours, with kind regards, RAY
Ah, rhyme.
A poet’s friend, a chimney’s enemy. A five lettered concept that has brought joy to millions, and death to more.
To discover the true phonemic history behind nestle, one has to travel decades back in time, to the tower of babel.
Now, many know the story of the Tower of Babel - built in South London, the area now known as Croydon, the Tower of Babel was the home to a dairy, making mostly small cheeses. These cheeses, popular as early as the 12th Century, confused the illerate masses, not due to the waxy skin and joyous centre, but as no-one could agree upon a name for the tiny delicacies. The heart of the problem lay at the pious monks who had taken a vow of silence, and cheese. These monks, the churners of this tiny cheese, under the watchful eye of their god, had promised to never speak its name, holding the cheese to be holy and sacred to them. Even uttering its name under their breath would be enough cause for a flogging or boiling of the sinner in hot cheese (from which we gain the word fondue: fond: to cook, oue: you).
Those careful enough not to attempt to speak or name the cheese would be plentifully furnished with the micro fromage, and after those who attempted to name the snack were dealt with by the strangly violent holy men, word quickly spread that it was a pleasure with no name. The community grew around the industry, as with it did the number of other unspoken-of joys within the group of people. Within just under a century, spoken language was effectively removed from the now busy metropolis.
Of course, with such a bustling industry, communication was increasingly difficult, and a complex system of sign language arose out of the need to discuss current affairs and business decisions. The language, based upon hand movements became a system of aids to make sure the message was clear, or sure-aids - our popular parlour game, charades, takes its name from this. A common practise in these hand based messages would be the concept of ’sounds like’, an concept thoroughly lost on the 13th Century folk, in that sound is pointless in a non-aural language. As a result, messages would be completely misinterpreted and misunderstood, leading ultimately to the downfall of the city of Babel after large infighting and a long period of civil war.
Restructuring of the city took centuries, but after invasion from numerous neigbouring cities, mostly the Franco-Prussian hoardes, written language slowly filtered back to the now completely mute populous. As many had not heard words for generations, if not a lifetime, most would just make up the sounds as they saw them written. This led to more confusion, everyone speaking in their own interpretation of words.
It was about this time when the Brand Revolution of 1527 brought its own problems to Babel. Chanel, Nestle, and Garnier, the three powerful heads of neighbouring states, marched across Europe, delivering sharp marketing messages to the unwashed masses. The Babelites, unable to pronounce the most basic of words, like Cat and Egg without faultering, found themselves with such a feeling of inadequacy, history’s first genosuicide took place, with the entire population of babel taking their own lives.
The Brands, shocked that their names could lead to suffering on such a grand scale, vowed to never take issue with people who found it hard to speak their names. To this day, Nestle (originally pronounced as our modern word ‘Eric’) is still spoken in various ways, the most popular however, is to rhyme with presslay.
So, my rhyme-concerned friend, worry not, and tell those who treat you with such contempt to remember those poor cheese quaffing souls of Babel.
(Wondering what the hell is going on? Check out a really old feature of webponce.com - Ask Webponce.)
