CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN WEEK 15: STARTING TO COME OUT THE OTHER SIDE

Another week has gone by and little by little there are signs of shops and businesses slowly returning to a modified form of business, i.e. open but with social distancing.  The dentist is now open but for emergencies only.  I have a broken tooth; it is not an emergency therefore I am put on the list for the day when it can be fixed. Now ... I await patiently fo David, at the hairdressers, to open and start taking appointments!

Meanwhile I am trying to cultivate or should that be, celebrate, "the little things". 

For example: I decided to touch up the paint on the garage door.  (We are having some rooms in the house painted this week so it put in mind to smarten up this up-and-over door which I painted in Farrow and Ball colours nearly 10 years ago!)  It is under cover and so doesn't get much weathering.

If one thing old age has taught me it is to keep up the maintenance of things.  Put that job off and then you are faced with a really big piece of work later.  As someone who is a great believer in Soap and Water I started by giving it a wash down with Fairy Liquid (dish detergent).  

To my astonishment that was all it needed.  Not a big event in my life but it gave me an enormous amount of satisfaction ... happiness is a gleaming garage door!

Another small moment of delight ... bread flour from Gavins Mill called Seeded White from Shipton Mill, Yorkshire.  Gavin's Mill has been open for business on a restricted scale (orders to be collected). I bought some stuff and topped up the order with this unfamiliar flour.  It is just so flavoursome!  It's an ill wind, as they say.  [Just for the record, the GM purchase has now gone through.]

* * * * * * * * * * NEW WORDS * * * * * * * * * * * 

Another delight for me is to come across new words or new origins of words.  Here are two from this week:

* * * * * * * FOR THE ARCHIVES:  BLOG AS AT POSITION   * * * * * * 

The format of 'Blogger' (this blog's template) has been redesigned recently.... maybe June 1, 2020 or thereabouts.

February 10, 2021  I have found 50 posts are 'Draft' comprising most of 2020 and early 2021.  Some text corrupted but otherwise most OK.

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL BOOTH STORY

Iain and I went through to a show at the Edinburgh Festival this week. The city was alive with visitors all enjoying the good weather and street life. Edinburgh certainly is a great setting for wandering around, having a coffee, taking in a show, and for us... heading back to Waverly Station and the train home again. 

We went to see Gyles Brandreth doing his 1 hour show "Break a Leg". It was terrific!  Early in the show he asks "Is anyone here a visitor?!"  From the front a voice " Yes... from Bel Air, Maryland". 

Brandreth who clearly enjoyed the chance to  ad lib is a walking encyclopedia e.g. he tells us all about one famous person from there: John Wilkes Booth.  

Now I know a thing or two about this chap (I share the same surname and, I have now discovered, date of birth!). He is the man who, on April 14, 1865, assassinated President Lincoln.

What I did not know was that he was born near Bel Air, Maryland; was the second youngest of 10 children. His father, Junius Brutus Booth, was a well-known actor...."

It occurred to me that Gyles might not know the story of the doctor who treated Booth for his broken leg. I asked him afterwards at the book signing ... No, he did not know it so I briefly mentioned that, being a man interested in words and language, he might search on line for the story....

... which is this: Dr Samuel Mudd was the doctor whose farm John Wilkes Booth went to after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. He set his broken leg, unknowingly becoming an accomplice. He was wrongfully accused and tried and convicted as a member of a conspiracy. Though he claimed to be innocent, he was still convicted and suffered immense hardship. His wife worked tirelessly to get him released. (He was eventually pardoned by Pres. A. Johnson.)

And what I thought Gyles would enjoy discovering is: from this we get the expression used in this sentence: "You had better not do that or name will be Mudd."

FORGOTTEN WORDS

This posting on the internet has been doing the rounds.  Link here: 

http://historyhustle.com/20-awesome-historical-words-we-need-to-bring-back/

It is all about words that have fallen out of use. Of the 20 items listed this one really struck a chord with me:

The origin [Wikipedia] : 
The term draws from a famous comment purportedly made by Apelles, a famous Greek artist, to a shoemaker who presumed to criticise his painting. The Latin phrase "Sutor, ne ultra crepidam", as set down by Pliny and later altered by other Latin writers to "Ne ultra crepidam judicaret", can be taken to mean that a shoemaker ought not to judge beyond his own soles. That is to say, critics should only comment on things they know something about.

The saying remains popular in several languages, as in the English, "A cobbler should stick to his last", the Spanish, "Zapatero a tus zapatos" ("Shoemaker, to your shoes"), the Dutch, "Schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest", and the German, "Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten".

Furthermore ... I would like to add my own observation to this, namely:

the more educated they are (and/or ... the further away from the subject they are...) the more authoritative is their stance!

Until I find a better image this will have to do!  You get the idea!

(A bald eagle and a Canada goose came beak-to-beak at the Spider Lake Springs Campground Friday morning.) **
_______________________________________________

* Cobbler Image Source: Wikipedia - Jorge Royan
** Globalnews.ca.   

LOST WORDS FROM OUR CHILDHOOD

Words, words, words .... every day I am coming across words that I use and no-one else uses such as: get to first base, cover your bases.  These are  Americanisms I use a lot and realize that if you don't know baseball then the metaphor is a bit lost!

Children have a huge vocabulary now-a-days because of TV, computer usage.  For example I was having a New Year drink with my neighbours at the weekend when their 4 year old, who was playing on the floor with a computer game, pipes up "Where's East?"  Heavens?  When did I learn about the 4 points of the compass?  10?  12?

For us silver surfers (this me feeding Ellie at Christmastime) here is a fun article sent to by Jane in Kelowna (British Columbia). It is based on North American word usage.

  

Lost Words From Our Childhood 

Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad really! The other day a not so elderly (65) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said what the heck is a Jalopy? OMG (new phrase!) he never heard of the word jalopy!!
She knew she was old but not that old...

Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle...
by Richard Lederer

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included "Don't touch that dial," "Carbon copy," "You sound like a broken record" and "Hung out to dry."
Back in the olden days, we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib and tucker to straighten up and fly right. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy moley!

We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell?

Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers.

Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.

We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, Well I'll be a monkey's uncle! or This is a fine kettle of fish, we discover that the words we grew up with- the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blink, and they're gone. Where have all those phrases gone?

Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it.
Hey! It's your nickel.

Don't forget to pull the chain.

Knee high to a grasshopper.
Well, Fiddlesticks!

Going like sixty.

I'll see you in the funny papers.
Don't take any wooden nickles.

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills.

This can be disturbing stuff !

We, of a certain age, have been blessed to live in changing times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We, at the other end of the chronological arc, have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It's one of the greatest advantages of aging.

See ya later, alligator!