NOVAS DESCOBERTAS E ASSOMBROS
DA ESPELEOLOGIA LINGUÍSTICA

Capa (fake) de "The Economist" de 27/09/08

Começa-se por SNAFU, passa-se a FUBAR e aporta-se ao misterioso - e ainda insuficientemente esclarecido - continente do "fuck". Onde, por exemplo, nos são desvendadas maravilhas como "The usually accepted first known occurrence is in code in a poem in a mixture of Latin and English composed some time before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys", from the first words of its opening line, Flen, flyys, and freris (= "Fleas, flies, and friars"). The line that contains fuck reads Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk. Removing the substitution cipher (here, replacing each letter by the next letter in alphabetical order, as the English alphabet was then) on the phrase "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" yields non sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli, which translated means, "They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely". The phrase was coded likely because it accused some Church personnel of misbehaving".

(2009)