Hear anything, or just random gurgling?

The audio in the clip above seems to crop up in a number of children’s toys.

It’s used in the Fisher Price Real Loving Mommy Cuddle and Coo doll for example and in the Baby Pals game on the Nintendo DS.

Now, what if I told you that apparently these toys are being used to promote Islamic fundamentalism and Satanism (yes, two religious beliefs for the price of one)  Confused?

Listen to the sample again,  only this time listen out for the phrases; Satan is King and Islam is the light.

Did you hear them this time?  Personally, I’m struggling to hear Satan is king, but I can sort of hear Islam is the light at a bit of a stretch, now that I’m listening for it.  It’s that last clause that’s important, now that I’m listening for it.

The human brain is a pattern matching machine, particularly when it comes to things like language.  You’ve probably seen TV reports for example where people with strong accents are interviewed and presented with subtitles in case what they say is difficult to understand.  With the subtitles you can understand them easily and might well wonder why they bothered with them, but next time it happens try covering them up.  Suddenly what you could understand before is a lot harder to make out.

The phrases above were both spotted in different toys by the same US woman, Rachel Jones.  Now, who knows what triggered her hearing the phrase the first time, but once primed for it she could easily pick it up again and tell others, priming them to hear it too.  Hearing phrases in random static isn’t a new phenomenon, it even has a psychological term to describe it, Auditory pareidolia.  The same phenomenon leads some people to hear the voices of spirits in random static, or satanic messages in rock music.

Unlike backmasking where phrases are intentionally added, these are all just misfires of the pattern recognition abilities of the brain trying to make sense of sounds where none exists.  Provide a context for that sense and the urge to interpret it becomes even stronger but the phrases still aren’t really there, you just think they are.

Alternatively a secret cabal of Satanists and Islamists have put aside their differences, infiltrated the highest levels of the toy and game industry and are breeding a league of subliminally controlled child drones to do their evil bidding.  I’ll let you decide which is more likely.

Incidentally, I’d be interested in hearing in the comments whether or not you heard the phrases in the gurgling before or after you read what you were supposed to hear (or even heard anything else!)

Audio: © Mattel

With this in mind, while I was in Poland over Christmas I picked up ‘English for Everyone’ by Janina Smólska and Jan Rusiecki, published in 1966, presumably in the middle of the Soviet domination of the country.  It has a number of conversations, in English, intended to show sentence structure presumably, but it’s often difficult to read them without introducing a rather sinister subtext into the proceedings.

Things start innocently enough,

John and Mary have a house in London.
Haven’t they got a small garden as well?                 Yes, they have
Mary has a piano in her room.
Hasn’t Mary got a desk in her room, too?               Yes, she has

But things soon start sounding suspicious when Jan arrives on the scene..

Mrs. B:  Tom!  Who locked the door to Jan’s room?
Tom: Locked? It’s never locked.
Mrs B: Exactly. It’s never locked and yet I can’t get in. What have you done with the key Tom?

Tom is eventually forced to turn out his pockets and the key is found, but why was the door locked and why was Tom trying to cover for Jan?
The plot thickens later in the book.

Mrs B: Where have you been, Tom? Why are you so late?
Tom: I was at Dicks, We played chess, and then we had supper, and…
Mrs B. But it’s ten o’clock! Why did you stay at Dick’s so long?

Tom comes up with various excuses, but reading between the lines it’s clear there’s more going on than meets the eye.
Next, he’s clearly been ransacking the house for something, but is forced to concoct a ridiculous excuse when caught in the act:

Mr B: I say, Mary!
Mrs B: What is it, John?
Mr B: Look.
Mrs B: Good heavens! What’s happened? Who’s done all this?
Mr B: Yes. The flower vase is overturned and the water is splashed all over my desk. And my papers are scattered all over the floor.
…
Mr B: But that isn’t the worst, Mary. There was an important letter on my desk. I left it there which morning. And now it’s missing.

Tom claims the wind must have blown the letter out of the window, but we know better.

Apparently, the authorities have begun to get suspicious by now however, as surveillance starts on the house:

Tom: I say Jan, don’t you think that new neighbour of ours is very queer?
Jan: What neighbour? We have the Greens on one side and the Joneses on the other. There’s no other house nearby.
Tom: I mean that funny yellow house which has been standing empty for such a long time. The one on the other side of the Greens. Well, someone has moved into it at last.
Jan: Yes?
Tom: I saw a luggage van in front of it as I was coming home from Dick’s one day last week. It was quite dark, almost ten o’clock. Now, doesn’t that look suspicious to you, Jan?
Jan: Suspicious? Why?
Tom: People usually move during the day don’t they? And then, you know, no one has had a good look at that man yet. I saw him only for a moment as he was taking some of his things out of the van/ He wears dark glasses and has a beard which I’m sure must be false.
Jan: Good heavens!
Tom: And he is never at home you know.
Jan: How do you know that?
Tom: Well, perhaps he is at home, but doesn’t want to let anyone in. As I was going past the other day, the milkman was just taking up the milk. He probably wanted to collect his money, so he rang the bell but nobody answered it. And today it was the same with the postman.
Jan: The man simply leaves early for work, that’s all.
Tom: And why does he keep the blinds pulled down in all the windows that look onto the street? Tell me that if you can?

I’ll transcribe some more tomorrow, when we’ll discover whether or not John is in on the conspiracy or simply trying to catch Tom in the act…

I’ve just been reading ‘The Meaning of Tingo‘ by Adam Jacot de Boinod, which lists a whole host of words and expressions from around the globe which we just can’t express in English.  I’ve only just started it, but I thought I might pass on a few of my favourites so far, which I think we need to adopt immediately:

• iktsuarpok: To go outside often to see if someone is coming  (Innuit)
• puniu: The skull of a man who resembles a coconut (Hawaiian)
• nylentik:  To flick someone with the middle finger on the ear (Indonesian)
• tsuji-giri:  To try out a new sword on a passer-by (Japanese)
• nakhur:  A camel which won’t give milk until her nostrils have been tickled (Persian)
• nglayap:  To wander far from home with no particular purpose (Indonesian)
• ichigo-ichie:  The practice of treasuring each moment and trying to make it perfect (Japanese)
• achaplinarse:  To hesitate and then run away in the style of Charlie Chaplin (Spanish, C America)
• giomlaireachd:  The habit of dropping in at meal times (Scottish Gaelic)

and finally, I guess it has to be

• Tingo:  To borrow things from a friend’s house one by one until there’s nothing left.

Incidentally, I also notice from his book that 42 in Japanese (shi-ni) means to die.  Is that a rather morbid take on the meaning of life?