Mysterious Voice-Mail has residents and experts alike baffled
Benton — A voicemail recently left on a telephone at an organic food store has linguists and laymen alike completely baffled. The message, which appears to be comprised of a string of guttural consonants and glottal stops, was forwarded to The Manatee for further analysis.
The message, lasting approximately one minute, was received late Sunday evening after the business had closed. Store owner Len “Organic Lenny” Anderson realized he had a message when he picked up the store’s phone to call in an order for some free-range kale flakes and barley soap. “I listened to the message at least 3 times before I realized, wow, we have something really special here. This could be a whole new form of communication.”
The message, roughly transcribed, is as follows:
“Hey Dwayne, it’s Mac. I know we talkt ’bout fixin’ the transmission on your skidder this weekend but Darlene’s ben yammerin’ ’bout new drapes for the camp since I don’t-know-what. She wanted to go over across to get ’em, but I sez why not wait till Sayerdee when we go to Fraikten? Christ on a bicycle, she’s after drivin’ me nuts these days. Must be The Change. Sundee we’re going to the camp to fix the chimley. Might cook up some of the cow moose Tony jacked last year and pick a feed o’ fiddleheads if they’re still up. Talk t’ya later ’bout the skidder.”
Linguist and ancient language expert Dr. Ernst Seidel of University of New Brunswick agrees, describing it as an indecipherable combination of balanced prolixity and poetic cadence. “The speaker communicates in a form I would call Meso-English, developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia, and Lower Saxony. He appears to be comprised of a string of guttural consonants and glottal stops. Decoding this information could be the equivalent of a modern-day Rosetta Stone.”
Not everyone agrees with the experts, however. Benton resident and playwright Mike Flagg listened to the message and stated simply, “I thought Dwayne fixed his skidder last fall.”