MIME-Version: 1.0 Server: CERN/3.0 Date: Sunday, 01-Dec-96 18:47:01 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 4583 Last-Modified: Tuesday, 07-Mar-95 00:42:08 GMT Reading

Top 5 Reasons You Never Want To Visit Reading

You'd be in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
Berks County, Pennsylvania, is considered an outlying part of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, which consists roughly of the counties of Berks, Lebanon (pronounced ``Leb'nin''), and Lancaster, with its center in Lancaster County. The Pennsylvania Dutch aren't really Dutch at all; in fact they claim to be of German descent, but the species has mutated to such a degree that the Germans really don't want them either. For lack of a better term, we refer to these beings as ``Dutchies.''

There is only one `waul' in Dutchy.
Dutchies speak a language entirely their own. It is possible that it may have evolved from English: a lucky English speaker is occasionally able to catch one out of every hundred or so words a Dutchy speaks. In any case, this language consists of a number of consonant sounds and one vowel phoneme, which can be written /au/. For example, the word `house' in English would be rendered `haus' in Dutchy. It is impossible, really, to describe how this word is pronounced: saying `hoss' while trying to swallow your larynx is perhaps a close approximation.

One other distinctive characteristic of Dutchy speech is the consistent transposition of the phonemes /v/ and /w/. (This phenomenon is reputed to be the result of a particularly gruesome accident involving a Volkswagon Beetle and a dyslexic farmer.) For example, I once overheard the manager of the produce department--our local grocery store is called `Weavers' (pronounced `Veewaus'), and is run by a food distribution company called (and I am not making this up) `Shur Fine'--I heard her say something about ``putting up diwiders betveen the wegetables'' so that they vouldn't get wexed. Apparently the wegetables vere grexing. One can understand vhy this vould be upsetting.

Don't even think about trying to find a good pizza.
The food that is eaten in Reading isn't quite like the food that people eat everywhere else. Dutchies don't have any appreciation for good food, like pizza: I've seen four pizza places in the exact same location go in and out of business one right after another. But you can take comfort in the fact that although it is impossible to get real pizza in Berks County, you'll never find a better chicken barbecue. This favorite food of the true traditional Dutchy is an entire chicken (or a pig for some of the larger representatives of the Dutchy species), roasted over a fire and eaten whole: bones, entrails, and all.

One thing at which Berks Countians excel in making, however, is donuts. But they don't just make donuts--they've introduced an improved food variety all their own, called ``faustnauchts.'' (You're not saying this right unless you blow chunks of your windpipe all over the place.) Faustnaucht is the Dutchy word for ``concentrated deep-fried nutrition product.'' A few hundred years ago one Dutchy fellow named Jesus (pronounced `Cheesaus') fed five thousand people with just five faustnauchts and a couple of barbecued chickens. I have personally seen grown adults actually explode after eating half a faustnaucht. My dad puts faustnauchts in the trunk of his car during the vinter to give him better traction in the snow.

There is only one highway through Berks County.
Even if you actually wanted to visit Reading, it turns out that it is not really possible. There is only one highway that runs through Berks County. It runs from west to east, from Leb'nin County to Schuykill County. If you want to go north or south in Berks County, you're just plain out of luck. It's actually easier to drive through Maryland if you want to go from, say, Harrisburg to Philadelphia.

And perhaps ``highway'' isn't really the right word to describe Berks County's only road. Most highways don't have traffic lights every hundred yards for the entire length of the road, from one end of the county to the other.


Disclaimer: The opinions of this author were not even expressed in the above document. Any mention of fictitious persons, real or otherwise, was not meant to reflect upon the character of the character upon whom it was meant to reflect. In short, the author does not wish to be held responsible for any of the above, which he swears he did not even write.
pierce@cs.cornell.edu