Lying in bed the other night we thought about writing down a phonetic mis-transcription of a famous work of literature. Like, we heard it spoken once, and we didn’t understand a single word, but we could repeat its sounds exactly. Is this a dumb idea? You tell us. But we did it, anyway.

Here’s the first paragraph of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Read it aloud, if you can.

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.  Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now, think about the meaning of those words, but read this aloud instead.

Udon Noah Gaudi we doubtful aver dybbuk bad Asimov The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; pith addendum adder. Dybbuk west mead bannister Mark Twain, Anatoly tooth, manly. Through watchings wiki strapped, bum manly Italy tooth. Thaddeus nodding. Hanover sea nanny booty butt Leiden tamarind other, wig outed us Aunt Polly, ortho-pillow, Barnaby Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, shit—am Mary, anthem Widow Douglas mistletoe abiding dybbuk, Rick him Astley at Roebuck, lithesome wretchers, A.C. Slater four.

Surely we’re not the first person to come up an experiment like this, right?

What do you think, should we carry on, one graf at a time, and mis-transcribe the whole thing?

Want to try it yourself?

UPDATE: We’ll try to post some mp3s of us reading these passages aloud, so you’ll see we’re not entirely crazy.

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