Once again, my personal NoRooz tradition and mission of bashing the inherently wrong and unduly horrendous English spelling of nowruz begins like Spring herself, anew.
Once again, I carefully prepare to gird my loins as the necessary backlash arrives from those haplessly less versed than I in Anglicus Lactosa, and hopelessly trapped in Encyclopaedia Iranica, and we begin our endless dance once again.
Let me throw the first punch. Nowruz is the most stupid English spelling ever concocted by anyone.
Now sounds like you would say “Cow How Brown and uh… Now”.
Ruz comes off as, “Bug, Rug, Hug, Pug”.
cowbug certainly does not sound like NoRooz. Which is of course the perfect English spelling.
Now many will give the traditional Yarshater/Iranica/United Nations excuse, and some will even bring the Presidential and Congressional proclamations that have been conned into using the defamatory cowbug instead of the pristine NoRooz.
And to them I would say, “Big deal! So you managed to con the White House and various US politicians! Since when do they know ANYTHING about Iran? You’ve merely proved the obvious!”
The Yarshater scientific experiment yielding the abomination spelling of cowbug, was a good idea except they forgot to use English linguists and instead chose Persian linguists.
Which is of course, backward. You use Persian linguists to define the correct phonetic spelling of a word in Farsi. You use an ENGLISH linguist when trying to find the best English spelling.
See how that makes more sense?
What the Yarshater goosehunt (goozhunt?) did was incorrectly invent a new word that few if any can pronounce unaided. There goes our brandable logo.
Surveys using more science than the Yarshater effort have shown that when shown cowbug, less than 4% will ever come anywhere near to pronouncing it correctly. Yet over 98% will say NoRooz perfectly correct, every single time!
Doubt this? Do it yourself.
Unfortunately many groups and other cattle have chosen to ignore reason, as well as the very clear and simple phonetic rules of the English language and mistakenly go along with the often strong-arm tactics of the hidden Yarshater Militia who will subtly remind you to correct the spelling back to cowbug.
I say down with tyranny and cowbug! If we can’t stand up for NoRooz, then what do we stand for?
There, the line in the sand has been once again drawn for the cowbugs out there to cross, happy hunting, and Happy NoRooz!
