Heck Of A Guy

Preferential Idiolectic Perseverance Of Specific Fictitious Characters In Internet Textual Transformation Settings

The Text Conversion Websites

One of the first wordplay sites on the internet to catch my attention was the Dialectizer, which transforms user chosen text or web pages from what passes for English on the net into dialects such as “Redneck” and “Cockney.”

The first line of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, for example, changes from its original text:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

to its Redneck equivalent:
It is a truth unyversally acsmartsd, thet a sin’le man in postesshun of a fine fo’tune, muss be in be hankerin’ of a wife.

or its Jive version:
It be a trud universally acknowledged, dat some sin’le joker in possession uh a baaaad fo’tune, gots’ta be in wants’ uh a mama.

Online Availability Of Specific Predetermined Translation Variants

If you liked the Dialectizer concept, you — well, you might want to keep that to yourself (trust me on this). In any case, the Dialectizer and its congeners have certain elements in common with sites such as The Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project.

The fulcrum of The Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project is The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less, which was originally written by Eric Schulman and published in the January/February 1997 issue of The Annals of Improbable Research. While secondary to our immediate purposes [as though that would somehow inhibit me or limit my elaborations], the content of The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less, despite its weakness in the humanities relative to its coverage of science and politics, is well worth perusing, assuming one can somehow find the two to four minutes required reading time.

More to the point at hand [albeit not quite there yet], it turns out that this site contains a batch of translations of The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less into a significant number of conventional languages such as Catalan, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, etc., an admirable list of what the site terms “pseudo-languages” [we're sneaking up on the relevant issue; we want to capture it alive if we can] such as “free verse,” “underwater,” and a series of translations of translations – an inspired and arguably profound concept [although still not the one we're after]:

• English to French to English
• English to French to English to German to English
• English to French to English to German to English to Italian to English
• English to French to English to German to English to Italian to English to Portuguese to English
• English to French to English to German to English to Italian to English to Portuguese to English to Spanish to English

Most notable, however, is that [get ready – we're going to pounce on the pertinence momentarily] both the Dialectizer and The Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project are particularly concerned about translations for folks with a predilection for the idiolects¹ of [finally!] the Swedish Chef and Elmer Fudd (AKA, for the purposes of this paper, Chefian and Fuddese, respectively).

Indeed, Chefian and Fuddese are the only idiolects featured on both of these pioneering sites.²

Given that the most restrictive of blogospheric criteria stipulates that a phenomenon appearing on one web site constitutes a “trend” and, if it shows up on two unaffiliated sites, qualifies as an “unstoppable movement,” requiring only an additional blog citation to achieve the status of “the next big thing,” the significance of these early appearances as an early indicator of an internet-powered diaspora is immediately evident.

It is, in fact, my contention that we are approaching an irrevocable tipping point. These unique modes of expression, hitherto isolated into virtually indistinguishable cartoon/puppet ghettos, are now on the verge of breaking into the mainstream as they garner acceptance on equal terms with so-called Standard English and other conventional languages and dialects.

Aural Samples

While the Swedish Chef and Elmer Fudd argots are already well known, ethnographically valid characteristic samples of their spoken words, captured during field research, are included for the instruction of any (non-Muppet/non-Looney Tunes) space aliens who happen upon this post and for the gratification and edification of the rest of us.

Elmer Fudd – Be Wery Quiet

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Elmer Fudd Sings Opera

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Swedish Chef Song

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And there is, as the infomercials invariably point out, even more. .

Additional Fudd & Chef Internet Loci

Examination of the Pop Culture Travel Phrases site reveals, along with phrases set in Elvis, Futurama, and Pirate lingo, both an Elmer Fudd & a Swedish Chef section.

For only $9.99, one can purchase Fun Talk software that translates ordinary, dull expressions into seven fun and zesty variants, two of which are, of course, Elmer Fudd & Swedish Chef.

The Voices of Many resembles the Dialectizer in function (i.e., changing Standard English text into dialects) and in language choices, offering both Fuddese and Chefian. Their primary principle is worth noting for its elegant simplicity and directness:

Of course, in matters internetian, the 800-pound Googrilla in the room must ultimately be addressed.

If one clicks “Preferences” on Google’s search page, a page of choices appears. Clicking on “Interface Language” displays a drop-down menu that includes – yep – Elmer & Swede.³

Choosing Elmer Fudd sets up a Google search page that looks like this:

The Bork, bork, bork! version of the Preference page becomes

QED

Google’s support of Fuddese and Chefian⁴ (or, as Google might prefer,Borkian, borkian, borkian) makes their proliferation inevitable, for as it is written,

Bork You
While perhaps superfluous, a tiff between the Opera browser folks and the Microsoft MSN contingent does nicely illustrate the communicative power of these language transformations. The following excerpt is from the 14 February 2003 Opera Press Release dealing with the matter:

Two weeks ago it was revealed that Microsoft’s MSN portal targeted Opera users, by purposely providing them with a broken page. As a reply to MSN’s treatment of its users, Opera Software today released a very special Bork edition of its Opera 7 for Windows browser. The Bork edition behaves differently on one Web site: MSN. Users accessing the MSN site will see the page transformed into the language of the famous Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show: Bork, Bork, Bork!

In October 2001, Opera users were blocked from the MSN site. The event caused an uproar among Web users and MSN was forced to change their policy. However, MSN continues a policy of singling out its Opera competitor by specifically instructing Opera to hide content from users.

“Hergee berger snooger bork,” says Mary Lambert, product line manager desktop, Opera Software. “This is a joke. However, we are trying to make an important point. The MSN site is sending Opera users what appear to be intentionally distorted pages. The Bork edition illustrates how browsers could also distort content, as the Bork edition does. The real point here is that the success of the Web depends on software and Web site developers behaving well and rising above corporate rivalry.”⁵

Linguistic Competitors

Obviously there are other language variants on the net. Klingon, for example, is a frequent offering and has an especially aggressive group of followers. Pig Latin, while not an idiolect, does have a claim as a contender based on primogeniture. Translations into Daffy Duck, one of Elmer’s colleagues at Looney Tunes, make an occasional appearance as do other cartoon-based languages. Regional dialects (e.g., Texan, Cajun, Redneck, and Southern Belle) also show up on these menus – as do cultural genres (e.g., jive, hip-hop, hippie, valley speak, beatnik), movie characters (e.g., The Terminator), computer-oriented jargon (e.g., hacker), and many, many more.

Based, however, on an exhaustive Heck Of A Guy scientific survey (i.e., DrHGuy fooling around on the net for 20 or 30 minutes), the Elmer Fudd and Swedish Chef choices are clear victors in this Darwinian struggle, being offered in every qualifying site⁶ examined.

Origins

Delineating the origins and first causes for the persistence of Elmer and the Chef on these internet sites is beyond the immediate scope of this paper.

On the other hand, issuing unfounded speculations based on untestable and perhaps specious assumptions transformed into pseudo-legitimate, quasi-academic hypotheses by the disingenuous invocation of the subjunctive mood or its equivalents falls squarely in this essay’s bailiwick. To wit,

Were statistical data available, the appeal of Elmer Fudd and the Swedish Chef as accessible supporting cast rather than self-contained stars could well be apparent. Likewise, should one be made privy to the audience’s perspective, the fascination with these characters’ menacing yet non-threatening aspects (a look abetted by Elmer’s shotgun and the Chef’s cleaver) combined with their undeniable yet inexplicable charm might become evident. Moreover, both Elmer Fudd and the Swedish Chef have been extraordinarily consistent in appearance and behavior from in their episode to episode appearances and possess few distracting complexities. They were, in short, easy to recognize and easy to recall. Were one to implement a psychological analysis, Fudd’s and Chef’s aggressiveness, rendered tolerable by what Fudd would no doubt term their “wovabiwity,” might be found to have facilitated an early identification with these Id characteristics by the childhood audiences, leading in turn to their penetration into the intrapsychic landscape of their impressionable viewers followed by an internalization and preservation of these imagoes with the languages peculiar to them maintained intact.⁷

Socio-Cultural Implications & Proposed Implementations

Despite their enduring popularity and growing acceptance, these languages, because of the second-class status accorded cartoons and Muppets by the anthropocentric, fictional-character-disparaging groups in power, have historically been treated as a source of low comedy, not unlike minstrel shows, rather than given the respect they deserve. As a result, not only have Human-Looney Tunes Character and Human-Muppet communications been especially vulnerable to catastrophic misunderstandings and stigmatizing errors, but we humans have robbed ourselves of the linguistic grace, expressiveness, and vigor available to those fluent in Fuddese and Chefian.

When did I — at least when did I, while sober — exert myself to phrase psychotherapeutic transference interpretations in Fuddese or Chefian? What lingual chauvinism prevented me from simply asking the hand puppet on my couch, “Vhet du yuoo theenk yuoor dreem ebuoot yuoor muzeer keessing a beeg greee frug nemed Kermeet meuns?” Was it unconscious anger that precluded me signaling the end of the session with “Dat’s aww ouw time fow today?”

Churches, bastions of brotherhood though they may be, fail miserably in accommodating these languages. Sure, they may speak in tongues – but not these tongues. When has a congregation extended even one of the 47 verses of the invitation hymn to include “just as I am without one pwea but that thy wove was shed fow me” or “ell theengs ere-a reedy, cume-a tu zee feest?”

Even my medical colleague and friend, the great and powerful Duke of Derm – has never, in the pursuit of informed consent, tried explaining to the puppet he’s treating, “I’m gueeng tu pup thet peemple-a; Um de hur de hur de hur.”

I suspect that the irrepressible Lawanda would have been better put at ease before her hospitalization had her surgeon empathically elaborated, “Dis is a vewy vewy sewious pwobwem that wiww weqwiwe and opewation. We’ww put you to sweep and take a wook inside you. But the pwognosis is positive. And, at weast you don’t have to wowwy about the cost – Bwue Cwoss wiww pay fow the suwgewy, uh-hah-hah-hah.”

But medicine and religion pale before the arts in illustrating the power and impact of these alternative linguistic universes. Consider, if you will [and you will], Anjani singing this version of Blue Alert?⁸

Zeere’s perffoome-a boorneeng in zee eur
Beets ooff beooty iferyvhere-a
Shrepnel flyeeng, suldeeer heet zee durt, Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp!
She-a cumes su cluse-a
Yuoo feel her zeen
She-a tells yuoo Nu und Nu egeeen
Yuoor leep is coot oon zee idge-a ooff her pleeted skurt
Blooe-a Elert

Feesiuns ooff her dreveeng neer
Ereese-a, ebeede-a, und deeseppeer
Yuoo try tu sloo it doon
It duesn’t vurk
It’s joost unuzeer neeght I gooess
Ell tungled up in nekedness
Yuoo ifee tuooch yuoorselff
Yuoo’re-a sooch a flurt
Blooe-a Elert

Yuoo knoo hoo neeghts leeke-a thees begeen
Zee keend ooff knut yuoor heert gets in
Uny vey yuoo toorn is gueeng tu hoort
Zeere’s perffoome-a boorneeng in zee eur
Beets ooff beooty iferyvhere-a
Shrepnel flyeeng, suldeeer heet zee durt
Blooe-a Elert

She-a breeks zee rooles su yuoo cun see-a
She’s veelder thun yuoo’ll ifer be-a
Yuoo telk releegiun boot she-a vun’t cunfert
Her budy’s tventy stureees heegh
Yuoo try tu luuk evey, yuoo try
Boot ell yuoo vunt tu du is get zeere-a furst
Blooe-a Elert

Yuoo knoo hoo neeghts leeke-a thees begeen
Zee keend ooff knut yuoor heert gets in
Uny vey yuoo toorn is gueeng tu hoort
Zeere’s perffoome-a boorneeng in zee eur
Beets ooff beooty iferyvhere-a
Shrepnel flyeeng, suldeeer heet zee durt
Blooe-a Elert, Blooe-a Elert Um de hur de hur de hur…

Video Bonus

The links below go to YouTube, the source of the videos. Embedded video players with the same clips ready to lay can be located at
Media Page For Preferential Idiolectic Perseverance Of Specific Fictitious Characters In Certain Internet Textual Transformation Settings

Swedish Chef

Elmer Fudd Singing

Robin Williams at 2005 Oscars
(Includes his imitation of Elmer Fudd – as well as some guys named Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, and Marlon Brando.)

Treatise Translations

The Fuddese version of this post can be viewed at
Preferential Idiolectic Perseverance Of Specific Fictitious Characters In Certain Internet Textual Transformation Settings – Fuddese Version

The Chefian version of this post can be viewed at

Preferential Idiolectic Perseverance Of Specific Fictitious Characters In Certain Internet Textual Transformation Settings – Chefian Version

Conclusion

See-a yuoo in zee foonny pepers. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

_____________________

1. An idiolect, is defined in the Wikipedia, as “a variety of a language unique to an individual. It is manifested by patterns of word selection and grammar, or words, phrases, idioms, or pronunciations that are unique to that individual. Every individual has an idiolect; the grouping of words and phrases is unique, rather than an individual using specific words that nobody else uses.” [↩]
2. While Pig Latin is also included on in the Dialectizer and The Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project, it is not an idiolect but, rather, is properly defined as a language game, “a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to the untrained ear.” See the Wikipedia articles for Language Game and Pig Latin. [↩]
3. Actually, the Swedish Chef choice is listed on this menu as “Bork, bork, bork!” A blog entry at Xooglers by an engineer who had previously worked at Google on” a little known widget called the Translation Console” notes that “There used to be a Swedish Chef option [on the Google Preferences Page], but that seems to have succumbed to political correctness,” seemingly indicating that the original name for this preference was “Swedish Chef.” I have been unable to discover if “Bork, bork, bork!” is indeed a gesture toward political correctness triggered by legions of militant Swedish chauvinists enraged by the perceived insult of implicit in Google’s endorsement of the mock Swedish spoken by a puppet character or just another example of over-the-top Googleosity. [↩]
4. It seems noteworthy that when Google – early on – introduced these variant languages into their preferences, many pundits at the time prophesied that such frivolous projects that consumed resources without directly facilitating business dealings or other practical tasks signaled Google’s imminent demise or, at least, (and this was a especially frequent comment) that Google had “too much free time,” a phrase applied, on occasion, to certain bloggers. In any case, Google seems to have survived. [↩]
5. One assumes that Opera, based in Oslo, chose the Swedish Chef in part because of the Scandinavian linkage. Nonetheless, given Elmer Fudd’s major role in the classic What’s Opera Doc?, a legitimate argument could have been made for framing the MSN site in Fuddese rather thanChefian. Just a thought. [↩]
6. Qualifying sites are those that (1) provide translations of pre-set or user-chosen text into multiple formats, including at least two that are not formally recognized as mainstream languages and (2) I happened to find [↩]
7. That their idiolects themselves are relatively easy for the uninitiated to grasp compared to, say, Klingon, is also a likely contributor to their success. [↩]
8. The original lyrics to Blue Alert follow:

   There’s perfume burning in the air
   Bits of beauty everywhere
   Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt
   She comes so close you feel her then
   She tells you no and no again
   Your lip is cut on the edge of her pleated skirt
   Blue alert

   Visions of her drawing near
   Rise, abide and disappear
   You try to slow it down, it doesn’t work
   It’s just another night, I guess
   All tangled up in nakedness
   You even touch yourself, you’re such a flirt
   Blue alert

   You know how nights like this begin
   The kind of knot your heart gets in
   Any way you turn is gonna hurt
   There’s perfume burning in the air
   Bits of beauty everywhere
   Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt
   Blue alert, blue alert

   She breaks the rules so you can see
   She’s wilder than you’ll ever be
   You talk religion but she won’t convert
   Her body’s twenty stories high
   You try to look away, you try
   But all you want to do is get there first
   Blue alert

   You know how nights like this begin
   The kind of knot your heart gets in
   Any way you turn is gonna hurt
   There’s perfume burning in the air
   Bits of beauty everywhere
   Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt
   Blue alert, blue alert [↩]