’22 A To Z Challenge – R

 

 

It’s said that the Inuit have 19 different words for snow.  Not to be outdone, the British have at least that many words for the concept of

RAIN

I use the word ‘rain’, loosely and generically, to depict moisture in the air.  Each word is a hairsbreadth away from its mates, in describing the exact level of cold, damp, and discomfort produced.  Fog can be from light enough to safely land an airplane, to Pea Soup, which is so thick that you can break your nose, walking into a lamppost.

As the water particles become larger, and more likely to descend as precipitation, the British lexicon progresses from fog, to mist, to mizzle, to drizzle, to showers, to rain.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Brits variously describe their rain as, downpour, drencher, soaker, toad-strangler and kerb-cleaner.

Not to be left out, the Scottish language has generously donated the word

RAWKY

which means foggy, misty, cold and dreary.  If you’ve watched the James Bond movie Skyfall, when he retreats to his family’s Scottish estate, you’ll have caught a glimpse of it.  During this past summer, the BBC, and the police, received a spate of panicked calls from concerned citizens who had witnessed a strange glowing orb in the sky, and feared they were being invaded by space aliens.  They were reassured when told that it was merely the sun.  It does come out and shine – occasionally.

***

Any too-brief post about R, can only benefit from the inclusion of a reference to my Mountain Ash-tree strong GREAT-grandson

ROWEN

He, and his wardrobe of knitted clothes, and his vocabulary, and his curiosity, are all growing by leaps and bounds.  Like many other young lads, he appears to have only two settings, a squirrel-on-meth, Nature’s version of a perpetual-motion machine, and, like a switch was thrown, a somnolence, a catalepsy so swift, that he can fall asleep while putting food in his mouth – at which point, at least one grateful parent often joins him in a brief nap.

Tune in again in a couple of days for Smitty’s Bible-Study seminar.  Remember to bring your King James Version, and fasten your seatbelt.  👿

’22 A To Z Challenge – H

 

Benny Hill!  Benny Hill!  Benny Hill!

What can you say about Benny Hill?

He was a mediocre actor, a funny TV comic, and a brilliant writer and comedian.  To be the writer and comedian, he was also a brilliant linguist, sometimes making puns and jokes in two and three languages.

He got “Son of a bitch!” past the BBC censors by claiming that a French skit character spoke of, ‘Ze sun, over ze beach.’

He talked about having a bent wood chair in his dressing room.  Not a Bentwood Chair – but a bent wood chair, because his dressing room was in the damp, BBC basement.

With the moving of a couple of letters on a sign, he turned
Dr. Johnson
the
rapist

Into

Dr. Johnson
therapist

Not only was he familiar with French and German, but quite knowledgeable about regional British accents, where, if you travelled 50 miles, the common folk could not be understood, and bread rolls had changed names.  Sometimes he used words and phrases that those born on this side of the pond didn’t recognize.

Once, he wrote a bit, making fun of a commercial from Cheer detergent, which had just begun selling in the UK.  We’ll take two dress shirts, and pour blackberry juice on both of them.  Then we’ll wash one of them in Applaud detergent, (So no-one could accuse him of making fun of Cheer) and the other one in Ben’s Cleanso.  Flash out – flash in.  And there you see it friends (Both shirts still badly stained)  Not a haip o’ the difference.

HAIP

haip = “wattle, sheaf or heap of straw etc.”
(Therefore – something small, or inconsequential)
And you thought that the word for H was going to be Benny HILL.

I took its meaning from context, but I had to wait for Al Gore to invent the Internet, and then wait some more until stable genius (Like Mr. Ed), Donald Trump perfected it, to meet its parents online.  I still haven’t, really.  I finally found one word-site which gave the definition, but only said that it was British dialect, and very rare.  It did not say what area dialect, although I suspect Northumbria/Yorkshire – up north, away from London and the universities, where the poor folk live.  If this word were coined in the US, it would be from Appalachia.

Helpful fellow-blogger and word-nerd Daniel Digby, just introduced me to wordhistories.net, a Frenchman living in Lancashire, who blogs about etymology.  At first I shook my head about a Frenchie in England but it makes as much sense as a Quebecois in Ontario.  It’s 300 miles from London to Paris, and 300 miles from Toronto to Montreal.  Perhaps he’s more successful wrestling search engines than I am.  When I get back from Merriam-Webster on Wednesday, we can have a few laughs.   😆

British One-Liners

Do UK websites….
….Use biscuits instead of cookies?

Dear Naps….
….I’m sorry I was a jerk to you as a kid.

I used to cough to hide my farts….
….Now I fart to hide my coughs.

Becoming a vegetarian….
….Was a big missed steak.

Cremation is my last chance….
….For a smoking, hot body.

87% of gym members….
….Don’t know it’s closed.

There are three things that never lie….
….Children, drunks, and yoga pants.

I wish I was as thin….
….As my patience.

My school bully still takes my lunch money….
….On the upside, he makes great fries.

I’m in a band called Dyslexia….
….We just released our Greatest Shit album.

I have a step-ladder….
….I never knew my real ladder.

Boeing has invented an invisible airplane….
….I don’t see that taking off.

Bigfoot is sometimes confused with Sasquatch….
….Yeti never complains.

My wife told me to put ketchup on the shopping list….
….Now we can’t read the list.

I don’t worry about being driven to drink….
….I worry about being driven home

Can those attending tonight’s Kinky Sex Anonymous meeting….
….Please use the rear entrance?

I asked 100 women what shampoo they preferred….
….Almost all of them asked, “How the Hell did you get in here?”

I went to a rave for blind people….
….And danced like no-one was watching.

I was never a very photogenic person….
….When everyone else said ‘Cheese,’ I said ‘Where?’

No matter how low I set the bar….
….Some people roll right under it.

The only substitute for good manners….
….Is fast reflexes.

I applied for a job as a waiter….
….I have a lot to bring to the table.

I put a wooden desk and a blackboard in my den….
….I think it makes the place look classy.

If glassblowers inhale….
….Do they get a pane in the stomach?

Some people are so narrow-minded….
….That their ears rub together.

Don’t challenge Death to a pillow fight….
….Unless you’re ready for the Reaper cushions.

***

Milestone:  This is my 1500th published post.

’20 A To Z Challenge – Y

*

Here she is, ladies and gentlemen – this week’s featured artist, fresh from her tour of the Egotism Hilton, singing a medley of her greatest hit, ‘Here’s My Number, Call Me Maybe.’  or as the inattentive among us mondegreen, Here’s My Number, So Call Me Baby.   😯

CARLY RAE JEPSEN

That ain’t all we call you.  As the band Sugarloaf says in their song Don’t Call Us, We got your number when you walked through the door.  She joins a list of artists that Canadians have to apologize for inflicting on Americans, not quite beginning with William Shatner, but including Neil Yoda Young, Jim Carey, Celine Dion, Mike Meyers, Brent Butt, Alanis Morisette, Avril Lavigne, Mister Nickleback – Chad Kroeger, and Canada’s answer to McCauley Kulkin, Justin Bieber.

Carly Rae Jepsen (born November 21, 1985) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Mission, British Columbia, Jepsen performed several lead roles in her high school’s musical productions and pursued musical theatre at the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria, BC. After completing her studies, she relocated to Vancouver and later competed on the fifth season of Canadian Idol in 2007, placing third, in 2008.

Wait a minute!!?  The old eyes (and memory) aren’t what they used to be.  This post is supposed to be about a word beginning with the letter Y.  A heartfelt Canadian apology!  Sorry!  It’s not supposed to be about Jepsen.  It’s supposed to be about

YEPSEN

yepsen – the amount that can be held in two cupped hands

WHO IN HELL NEEDS/NEEDED SUCH AN AMOUNT??!

While I welcome and appreciate the accuracy and interlinked logic of the Metric System, it took me more than a few years to get used to it.  I still mourn and bemoan the loss of the British Imperial System of measurement but – what were those guys smoking?   It was more than idiosyncratic; it bordered on idiotic.  They just made (sh)it up as they went along.

Three barleycorns, side by side was an inch.  The length of a King’s foot became the ‘foot’ measurement.  A yard, was from his nose to the tip of his outstretched arm, and the distance between the tips of two outstretched arms was the fathom.  Everyone’s hands are different sizes, so everyone’s Yepsen was a different size.  (Somehow, that sounds faintly pornographic.)  😯 

In the 16th century the rod (5.5 yards, or 16.5 feet) was defined (as a learning device and not as a standard) as the length of the left feet of 16 men lined up heel to toe as they emerged from church, with variations from 9 to 28 feet.  (Why must the measurement be taken after these good men attended church?  Did their feet swell (or contract?) during service?)
There were several versions of the pound.  Eventually, they coalesced down to the Troy Pound, which was used to weigh medicines and precious metals, and the Avoirdupois (French = have weight) Pound, which weighed everything else.

The Troy Pound weighs less than the Avoirdupois Pound.  That screws up the silly old riddle, Which weighs more, a pound of gold, or a pound of feathers?  Since gold is weighed in Troy, the pound of feathers actually weighs more.

In the past, there has been talk – before the medication kicked in – of Metric Days, consisting of an AM and a PM of 10 Metric hours each with 100 Metric minutes.  A Metric week would have 10 days.  This has not been one of my Seinfeld blogs, about nothing.  It’s been a distraction post about something – anything – else.  Fortunately, it’ll only be two standard Imperial days till I publish something less frivolous.  If you’re out of therapy from worrying about those Metric days and weeks, stop by.

WOW #53

The smartest British archeologist on the Time Team talks like an American redneck. Lost letters, missing punctuation, and strange pronunciations (even for a Brit) litter his speech patterns, which were already set, in up-country Yorkshire, before he got an amazing education.

If he and his trusty trowel happen upon a particularly interesting/significant find, he is apt to burst out with

STONE THE CROWS!

An exclamation of incredulity or annoyance.

There are some words and phrases which dictionaries just cannot prove the origin of, like “rule of thumb.” That problem interests me, because this one is so new. The British OED claims that it is an American culturalism. Merriam-Webster insists that it is a British phrase. When they can’t fault each other, they blame it on the Australians.

There have been a few attempts to explain the origin of this odd phrase. A croze is the groove at the end of a wooden barrel that holds the end plate in place. It has been suggested that the expression was previously stow (or stove) the croze, that is, break open the barrel. I can find no supporting evidence for that idea though and have to consign it to the realms of folk-etymology. The more prosaic suggestion – that it alludes to the practice of throwing stones at crows – is much more likely.

I’ve found mid-20th century references from England that describe it as an Americanism and American newspaper articles that call it ‘an old English phrase’. The dates of those are more or less right but not the locations – the phrase appears to have originated in Australia. Most of the early citations in print come from down under. It has a sort of Australian twang to it and is in common with several other similar phrases, all with the same meaning: starve the bardies [bardies are grubs], stiffen the crows, spare the crow.

Crows were unwelcome guests at sheep farms as, given the chance, they will kill and eat newborn lambs, so the association with annoyance isn’t hard to see. The link in meaning to surprise isn’t obvious, but then there’s no particular reason to expect to find one. Stoning crows was a commonplace enough activity and calling it up into a phrase could have been done for no reason other than that the person who coined it just liked the sound of it. There are other expressions of surprise or annoyance like I’ll go to the foot of our stairs, strike me pink, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle or if that don’t take the rag off the bush. None Most of these don’t have any sensible literal meaning and stone the crows is another to add to that list.

“Take the rag off the bush” actually dates to before households had laundry dryers, or even outdoor lines to hang it on. Large items like bed sheets or blankets were often draped over shrubs or bushes to dry in the sun and breeze. If a strong-enough gust of wind came along, it could blow the ‘rag’ off the bush, and down the street, into the dust or mud, and it would have to be washed (by hand) all over again.

WOW #52

The United States, and Canada – two counties, separated by a single language.
If you think that’s a problem, compare either country’s speech/writing, with Britain’s. If only they’d all speak the Mother Tongue. Instead, most of them speak in some Motherf**king tongue. It’s like the bloody tower of Babel.

I recently had my ears assaulted from the TV, by the word

MANKY

It was used by the narrator on a (Would you believe it?) BBC archeology show. From context, I knew what he meant – scanty, paltry, mere. It’s a very British, English word. Since I live as near to (almost)French-speaking people, as they do there, I thought that it came from the French word, manqué – lacking, or needing. When I checked, I found
slang:  worthless, rotten, or in bad taste

dirty, filthy, or bad

Word Origin for manky

via Polari from Italian mancare to be lacking

So, I got the lacking, or needing right, but not from French. Polari??! What in Hell is Polari??

A distinctive English argot in use since at least the 18th century among groups of theatrical and circus performers and in certain homosexual communities, derived largely from Italian, directly or through Lingua Franca.

The show I was watching was called Time Team. When the wife first found it, I hoped that it was a paradox-laden Sci-Fi program. Only the Brits could make a series about archeology, interesting. Using actual archeologists to explain what was going on, would be as dull as the dirt they were excavating.

To make it interesting, they added a perky little narrator who runs his own little production company, doing little historical satire films. Suddenly, I understood the homosexual reference.

There is a core group of 10 or 12 experts. They are each the best in their respective fields. Some of them are professors at prestigious universities, with doctorates, and letters after their names. They are not all archeologists. Some are historians, or geophysical investigators, or pottery experts, or a landscape analyst, who knows how the presence of humans alters the scene over centuries, or eons. They all have their regular “day-jobs.” The show began when BBC convinced a bunch of them to rush away from those jobs on long weekends, or what the English call Bank Holidays, and spend three days digging at various sites.

There are only 8 or 9 ‘Bank Holidays’ per year in England, but the series increased to 12 or 13 episodes a year. They did this for 20 years, stopping in 2014, but there have been several ‘Making Of….’ specials produced since. 20 Years??! This show lasted as long as Gunsmoke.

They dug mostly in England and Scotland, with a couple of trips over to Ireland. They did a dig in the Channel Islands, the only portion of Britain that the Nazis invaded and occupied. They did one in France, one in southern Spain, and managed to get all the way to the Caribbean island of Nevis, to investigate 400 years of British sugar plantations.

Check it out! Give it a try. It’s a great idea in the spring, when regular network shows all become reruns – of reruns – of reruns. Caution – you may learn something interesting.

You’ll Pay For That

Every year, around tax time, there are a spate of hard-luck stories about how unfair the American tax system is. One subject which always comes up is about Americans who work out of the country.

The American IRS is the greediest, graspingest, most inflexible, most confiscatorial system in the world. They make paying the vig to an underworld loan shark look easy and polite.

Many people think that those who work abroad are well-to-do. Many are free-lancers, barely getting by, and the American government makes it overly difficult. There is a law which states that a person born outside the US, to even one American citizen, is also automatically an American citizen. That was the rule that allowed Ted Cruz to run for President, even though he was born in Canada.

The Internal Revenue Service has a rule that, any citizen working outside the country, must pay taxes to them. This often means that people have to pay taxes twice, and the IRS paperwork involved is intrusive, convoluted and arcane. It’s enough to cause a career bureaucrat to throw up his hands and retire.

The money-grubbing and paperwork has got so bad, that many Americans are giving up their citizenship. No taxation without representation! This used to be an easy “fill in a form, and pay a $300 fee.” In retaliation, the IRS has instituted new regulations which require a whole tree’s worth of paper, and an increased charge, north of $2000. You have to pay lots of money, not to have to pay lots of money.

The shit has hit the fan, even if it’s not obvious yet. This year, just about tax-time, something occurred which will cause waves, if not change the entire ex-pat tax scheme. A baby was born. There was no star in the East, and definitely no three Wise Men.

Megan Markel gave birth to Archie Harrison Windsor. Being born in a foreign country, to one parent of American citizenship, the Federal Government has declared him to be an American citizen. The IRS rule says that he must declare all assets, income, and increase in financial worth – and pay taxes on them.

Most 1-year-old children don’t have much of an income stream, but as a member of the British Royal Family, Archie owns a chunk of a nation, and his worth is considerable, and increases constantly. The chances of the IRS collecting a piece of that, are less than the Jehovah’s Witness Church forcing Michael Jackson to tithe 10% of his obscene income.

There’s trouble looming down the line, too. All American citizens, no later than the day after their 18^th birthday, must register for Selective Service. Can you see a future King of England fighting in a foreign war? Nah, I can’t either.

The invasive, prying paperwork that either Megan or Archie would have to submit, must include full financial information about a spouse or parent, since that can affect taxes owed. This means that Prince Harry must also reveal to the IRS, all his assets, income, and investments. I can just imagine a Federal clerk opening a letter on Buckingham Palace stationery.

Dear IRS

Re: your request for full disclosure of Harry Windsor’s financial situation

FUCK YOU! Strong language to follow.

I will not be surprised to hear of special dispensation in this case, but surely some enterprising lawyer/taxpayer team can use it as a precedent, to force changes to a Federal Department whose mascot is a shark.

Book Review #19

The Book – The Psychology of Time Travel

The Author– Kate Mascarhenas (?)

The Review – Let’s start with the author’s name. It’s really Kate Flynn, but the name on the cover is Mascarhenas. That comes from the same base as ‘mask’, and ‘mascara.’ It’s a Portuguese-language nom de plume, which means “nom de plume.”

In the book, she includes the words ‘quango’ and ‘lanugo,’ neither common, even in Britain. They are valid English words, but seem as if they should be peeking out of a Romance language, like Spanish, or Italian. I’ll properly introduce you to them later.

This is a book – by a woman – for women – about women. It includes the description of an 8-year-old girl’s birthday party, where, “Her blonde ringlets hung down to the tops of her puffed sleeves, and her lacy skirt stood out straight to the side whenever she twirled around, which she did, a lot.”

The story is inhabited almost entirely by females. The only men who show up, are a male police detective and a journalist, who provide information and clues to the young woman investigating a locked-door murder.

The British authoress works in a commentary on racist attitudes in England. Our hardy, mixed-race investigator came to England as a child, from the Seychelles Islands, where she viewed herself as white. Having recently graduated University as an Engineer, she is working for the time-travel Conclave as a volunteer, but the female police constable who interviews her, regards her as colored, and assumes that she is the cleaning woman.

As usual, I was hoping for some temporal paradoxes to be solved, or some Back To The Future III suspense and manoeuvring, to prevent them. Didn’t happen! I was not surprised to not be given, even a vague hint, at how the time-travel process was accomplished, but it was invented by four women.

As a linguist, I was pleased to read that the process was powered by a newly-discovered, transuranic element called Atroposium, aptly-named after Atropos, the Greek Goddess who cut the thread of fate of mortals’ lives. Apparently the stuff was so safe and stable that it could be carried around in charcoal briquette-sized lumps, wrapped in lead foil.

While not described or explained, the time-travel process is so simple that it is used to produce a child’s toy, a Rubik’s-cube-sized box with a hole in the top. Children put candy in, and it disappears, only to return a minute later. What would happen if they stuck their finger in?

The “psychology” of the title is really just the mental stress felt by (female) time-travellers, caused by experiencing history in a non-linear way. Travelling to the past, they meet people that they know are dead. Travelling to the future, the see death certificates and gravestones for people they know are alive.

The detective/heroine goes back several times, to visit her father, who died when she was young. To her, the visits are weeks, or months, apart. I see, from his perspective, that she shows up twice the same afternoon, or on successive days. This grown woman is not his 8-year-old daughter. ‘Go away lady, you’re bothering me.’

I was expecting nothing when I ordered this book, and that’s what I got. No real time travel. No real psychology. It’s a good thing that I got it for free from the library. It had all the panache of a ‘Nurse Jane’ romance novel, full of ‘feelings.’ I feel disappointed and let down. I feel that I’ll need to read and review something with a little more OOMPH. Stay tuned; I’ll see you later.  🙂

Why I’m Proud To Be From Ontario (Or Not)

After a micro-surgeons’ conference in New York City, some of the leading surgeons were in the bar and, being drunk out of their faces, began to reminisce and brag about their accomplishments.

The first, a British surgeon explained:

“We had a chap caught in a printing press at a factory last year, and all that was left of him was his little finger.  Our team of surgeons constructed a new hand and built a new arm, engineered a new body, and ultimately, when he returned to the workforce, he was so efficient that he put five men out of work.”

That’s nothing, boasted the American surgeon:

“We had a worker trapped inside a nuclear reactor, and all that was left of him was hair.  We constructed a new skull, a new torso, and new limbs, and put him back in the workforce.  He is now so efficient, that he put thirty men out of work.”

Not to be outdone, the Ontario surgeon claimed:

“I was walking down the street one day, when a fart went by.  I took it to the hospital in a garbage bag, let it loose on the table, and we got to work.  First of all, we wrapped an asshole around it, built a butt onto it and attached a body to one end, and legs to the other.  Gradually it turned into Premier Dalton McGuinty, and he has now put the whole fucking Province out of work.”

Having thoroughly screwed things up, Daddy Dalton has now resigned, and taken his Golden Handshake with him.  It would be nice if I could have the entire Handshake, but one finger would suffice.  Goodbye, Asshole, you old fart!