-2

I've been told that the following phrase is valid English, although Google Translate marks each of the words as wrong.

Therf werre eyght bokes.

What does this phrase mean in common English?

Improve this question
11
  • 2
    In common English, not much. :^)
    – Mr.Wizard
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 8:25
  • 5
    Where's it from? It could be a way of writing 'There were eight books' from the time when English spelling showed considerable variation. Even so, 'therf' is unusual.
    – Barrie England
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 8:33
  • 1
    The phrase is not valid. It's just that each individual word is valid.
    – Urbycoz
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 10:52
  • Why's the downvote?
    – Kromster
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 11:05
  • 4
    The downvote might be because "This question does not show any research effort"; a simple Google search would provide most of what is on here. (But not all; it's not my downvote, though I think it's close to the line.)
    – Tim Lymington
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 11:41

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
12

"Therf werre eyght bokes" isn't a grammatically correct sentence.

It's used as an example on a number of websites and books to show that having a really large spell-checker dictionary isn't necessarily a good thing because if your spell-checker contained every word in the Oxford English Dictionary then "Therf werre eyght bokes" would be shown as correct.

The sentence looks similar to "There were eight books", but the original is a deliberate example of an incorrect or nonsense sentence.

Improve this answer
4
  • 3
    Therf (or tharf) is Northumberland dialect for unleavened: boke (as well as a Chaucerian spelling) is Lancashire dialect for 'to push or poke'.
    – Tim Lymington
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 12:04
  • 3
    And apparently eyght is a form of eyot (island), and werre is an alternative spelling for: were, war, waur, ware, wary, warre (a knot in timber), weary, weir, or vere (springtime). Also, indirectly, of worst (as a verb), and aware. Probably just as well it's no longer in use.
    – Tim Lymington
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 14:36
  • @TimLymington: These are interesting additions I was looking for. Thank you.
    – Kromster
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 14:46
  • 1
    Boke is also a Scots/Ulster term for vomit
    – decvalts
    Commented Aug 7, 2015 at 22:02

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .