:: The Wendy House ::

The Reading Chronical reports that the astrology section could not be published due to unforseen circumstances.  The Reading chronical clearly has a very highly developed sense of humour,  excellent!

After consulting with the experts (mum, friend, their books, the internet) I thought that the nobly, noble, small tree in my garden was a ‘Sambucus nigra’ more commonly known as an Elderberry and before that as aeld. 

Like many trees the Mythical history of the Elderberry proposes, or describes its traditional uses.  The name may come from the Anglo-Saxon term ellaern or aeld which means “fire” or “to kindle a fire“.  It was associated with female-centric goddess systems then over time gradually perverted to represent ‘mischievious faeries’ by both the celts of Ireland and England.  Traditionally the Elder is placed by the back door of a home, where mine grows, to keep evil spirits from influencing or entering the home and used to pin the thatch to a roof.  The runic association is with Feh, the first rune, indicating where one sequence ends and another begins,  the cusp of transition,  renewal.

 British Christians gave the Elder a more sinister press,  claiming that Judas committed suicide by hanging himself from this tree.  He must have been short or the tree leaning over a decent drop.  Along with many other trees it is claimed Jesus was crucified on an cross made of Elder.

Then a garden specialist happened to wander by saying that’s a Viburnum tinus…

stranger on the street:  have you got the time?

This is not a question I was asked in the US.  This question has been put to me on several occasions when walking from bus stops to appointments in the UK.

The question always makes me think twice before replying.  Am I being asked for the current time or does the asker suspect that I may be a professional street walker?

Comments on the fragrant wearing of non-specific-animal-print velvet trousers (NSAPVT) in a built-up area.

US:  Awesome pants!

UK: Top trousers!

Asian: (points at the NSAPVT, looks me in the eye and smiles)

Today is the anniversary of a day when the darned Normans (French of viking origins) defeated the Anglo Saxon’s (English of German and Danish origins).  The English were led by the recently elected (Witenagemot, Witan) Danish Saxon king of England, Harold Godwinson, the nick-namesake of one of our current princes,  just outside a holiday resort called Hastings on the English south coast. 

The invading Norman team were lead by William the bastard who had allegedly been promised the English throne by King Edward the confessor (Saxon).  King Harry’s team had just hiked from York (241 miles, 386 kilometres) in a remarkable 4 - 7 days after fending-off an invasion by the Norwegian King Harald the hard who may have been promised the English throne by a Danish King Canute the hardy.

The basic plot is that William the bastards’ team kills most of Harry Godwinson’s team. 

William the bastard, Duke of Normandy, became William I of England,  namesake of the current heir to the English throne, 2nd in line.  Most histories subsequently refer to William the bastard fellow as ‘William the Conqueror’ or ‘Guillaume le Conquérant’ .  Apparantly Londoners don’t acknowledge or use the ‘conqueror’ part of his rather convincing political spin, they politely refer to him as William Duke of Normandy.  

William’s arrival appears to have marked the end of the system of elected monarchy in England, though the Witan remained in name their role changed to that of the Norman feudally based system where membership was based on gifts of land originating from the King,  effectively a King’s court,  this system later evolved into the current Parliment.

On a linguistic note,  according to Jonathan Stern:

Anglo-Saxon and Norman French wouldn’t agree what gender some noun or other was… so they’d just forget about it and call it “it”.This has created a very flexible language (once referred to as “a lot of foreign words mispronounced”) which often has two subtly different words for things (e.g. compare our “come” and “arrive” with the German “kommen” and the French “arriver” - remember Anglo-Saxon would have been very like German; Norman French was closely related to Parisian French).

The small and yet pleasingly formed Reading Museum within the versataile town hall has its very own hand embroidered 1885 copy of the 70 metre long Bayeux Tapestry.

while discussing some extremely impressive specialist stuff:

specialist 1:  does it do the whole gubbins?

specialist 2: yea

Wendy thinks:  Oh!  I need one of those,  haven’t had my whole gubbins done for years.

waiting room receptionist:  are you being seen to?

I had my cats ’seen to’ as a condition of adopting them from rescue centres.   

Wendy:  someone has been notified of my arrival

Cunningly avoiding providing information on the impending existence, or not, of my reproductory organs. 

Phew,  near miss!

I thought I knew what this idiom meant until I tried to verify it online.  This is what I believed:

• cop. To view, gather or recieve.
• flack.  Tiny metalised paper strips dropped from World War II aircraft as a means of interferring with enemy radar that is attempting to identify their position to relay to the anti-aircraft guns. 

In Wendy’s world,  to cop some flack is to be on the recieving end of lots of small irritations that together add up to major disruption.  This interpretation is consistent with usage of the phrase in forums, blogs and news item titles.

Merriam-Websters 4th and last definition of flack is ‘anti aircraft guns’ or ’the bursting shells fired from flak’.  It cites the origin of the main meaning of flack ‘one who provides publicity’  as ‘unknown,  1939′ .  During WW2.    WW2 airplanes also used to drop publicity (propaganda) leaflets,  Dropping flack and dropping small leaflets have remarkable behavioural, if not intended funtional, similarity.

Dictionary.com’s 6th entry for flack cites the meaning of flack that looks most similar to my current understanding of its use

• Antiaircraft artillery.
• The bursting shells fired from such artillery.
• Excessive or abusive criticism.
• Dissension; opposition.
• Informal:  Excessive or abusive criticism.
• Informal:  Dissension; opposition.

The biological term ‘cell’ was coined by Robert Hook, most famous for the eponymous Hooks law and working as Sir Christopher Wren’s colleage on St. Pauls Cathedral and a substantial proportion of London after the great fire.  Evidently Robert Hook meant to leverage the connotations of a monks cell, one of many defined spaces with an identical yet sparse functional content.

cell phones are named after the cellular network that supplies the signal,  possibly the term cell has the same root in a monks cell.  Two very diverse current-use meanings (phone, biological component) stemming from one original use.  Possibly…

Autumn sounds like awesome when pronounced with an US accent.  Recently one US friend commented upon returning to the UK:

It’s good to be back.  It’s awesome

In the UK buildings can be licenced to pursue music, dancing, and entertainment of the like kind, they also enjoy throwing several large dollops of befuddlement into the mix, just in case

According to a Westminster tour guide and the world wide words website:

Our parliament comes from the old French parlement, which at first meant only a “talk, consultation, conference” (it derives from the same French word parler, “to speak” as parlance, parley and parlour, the last of which, etymologically, is a “room set aside for conversation”). Later parlement evolved to the sense “formal consultative body” and so to “legislative body”.

Now that was interesting,  wasn’t it? 

have you ever wondered where wheelchairs go to relax,  hang-out,  shoot the breeze? 

Me neither. 

Apparantly it’s in a wheelchair park where they can cosey up to each other without anyone batting and eyelid or a googly…

As Poodle astutely noted there are a lot of ‘boob jobs’ at the seaside resorts in the Cyclades,  clearly echoing the popular church architecture.

On our 2nd day sailing motoring the skipper taught us how to tie bowlines, 

B-OH-lines not b-OW-lines 

Though the knot is used to secure the boat’s bow, and stern, to a mooring. 

Thats a knot, not a knot.

Real sailing experience #5: know your knots

The BBC reports that ‘Dr.’s slang is a dying art’.   Evidently,  Dr.’s slang was a creative way of insulting their patients and each other.  I do like a good insult,  its the basis for bringing entertainment into otherwise dull parliamentary debate.  Aparantly Dr.s used ‘acronyms designed to spell out the unsayable truth about their patients’.  Why unsayable?  Doctors should have a skill for being concise, frank, honest.  The exmaples provided in the article may be ‘creative’ but they are also based on stereotypes many of which may be prejudicial and lead to inappropriate treatment decisions.  Cited exceptions to prejudicial stereotyping included TTR (Tea Time Review), PFO (Patient Fell Over) PGT (Patient Got Thumped).  These all seem fair game for saying out loud or acronyms.  But instead of saying or writing NFN (Normal for Norfolk),  why not list the actual behaviours that lead to the application of that prejudice,  for example,  ‘Observed Talking To Treestump’ (OT3).

If the slang perpetuates prejudices then it (not patients) should die.

A narrow boat called ‘Chavori’ on the River Kennet.  A google search for the word Chavori produces very few search results (3 pages) and perplexingly questions whether I wanted to search for ‘behavior’,  the results include texts on the ‘Romany’, ‘Gypsy’ languages.  One article, ‘A memoire of the language of the gypsies as now used in the Turkish Empire’ describes Chavori as ”a young female child.‘  Evidently, many English Romany words have become common usage within the English language e.g. lolly, cosh, cushy and most recently chav.

Not ‘are you apprehended by the police for the ghastly crime of insufficient height’ but another clever euphemism for wanting to go to the toilet.  The city of Westminster has signs to help you out with clever stick-people designs to illustrate the problem for those people who don’t understand the idiom ‘caught short’.   My favourite part of the sign is the invitation to text toilet,  for a toilet.  Hoorah,  no euphemisims there just send a text saying what you need,  effectively the bottom-line…

they are just pretending,  and they have allotments too,  so they can’t be real beggars because they can grow their own food and stuff

The free Thames Valley Park bus service is outstanding.  It not only provides free wireless internet access,  it also provides signs to let you know where the internet access might be a bit buggy.

BT Support Engineer:  Mrs. House…

Wendy:  …my mother isn’t here

BT Support Engineer:  can I talk to her?

Wendy:  I don’t see why,  its my phone,  my home,  my internet connection and I’m 44,  why do you need to talk to my mother?

BT Support Engineer:  Ms. House?

Wendy:  Yes?

Ask AskOxford.com describes the origins of the English term ‘POSH’ in a way that aligns with the folk myth I somehow acquired:

The story goes that the more well-to-do passengers travelling to and from India used to have POSH written against their bookings, standing for ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’ (indicating the more desirable cabins, on the shady side of the ship).

A website that explains English phrases considers the above explanation as being popular over accurate and lists other,  less well known,  plausible alternatives such as:

Posh is also the Romany word for money and this was current throughout the 19th century.

The Romany word for halfpenny is a popularly web-cited explanation, the true origin may now be lost with old buffers

a buffer is a description applicable to an old man according to my folk memory and:

• Oxford.com (UK)
• Merriam-Websters online dictionary first definition (US).

But not according to the majority of current online English-language dictionaries and encyclopedia, including:  

• Wiktionary doesn’t (yet) list buffer as an old man, neither does wikipedia.
• Encarta defintitions 1, and 2 (Microsoft).

 I suspect that age is killing-off old buffers…

can lead to fatal misunderstandings if pronounced:

execute if manager

welcome to Sea-At-TULL, mount rainy-air on the left

I’m just going to put you on hold while I reboot my computer,  it will be quicker

I fell off my chair with stomach rippling laughter.  Clearly I’d misinterpretted the true meaning of  ’hold’

This conversation topic sneaks out over lunches and in pubs.  At first I thought it was a reserved conversation amongst friends because while the stories have entertainment value they clearly point to a source of stress in the tellers life.  Then recently while buying home and contents insurance from a clerk in my local Reading bank branch:

Bank Clerk (BC):  is it a nice home?

Wendy: it needs some work but its detached,  no noisey neighbours to worry about

BC:  Oh tell me about it!  we’ve got the nieghbour from hell she deals crack cocaine and everyone knows about it,  last night at about 4am she through a concrete garden boulder at her friends car because they were having an argument,  I was lying there praying she didn’t miss and hit my car…  …we tried calling the police but they just don’t want to know,  there’s nothing you can do…  …we’ve asked the council to move us but they can’t…   …she leaves her 4 year old child alone in the house while she goes out partying… (and more of the same ilk for approximately 15 mins)

My listening performance was worthy of the type of fees traditionally paid to professional psychiatrists.    What friendly approachable, troubled, staff they have at my local bank branch in Reading. 

I might just drop into the bank to check she’s ok next time I’m downtown.

Mansfield chap said:

I knew a Scottish girl that lived in the US for 6 years, she’d start a conversations with ‘HI’ and talk a weird mix of American and Scottish getting more Scottish as she kept talking.

After 8 years in the US you don’t even have a slight twang.

what happened?

In the quiet zone a
baby cries
phone sings
headset treble-beat twangs
A couple of work colleagues converse flirtatiously
Wendy wonders at the shift in the meaning of quiet….

Not an affectionate hand gesture,  a book press.

Small press’ such as Reading’s own ‘Two Rivers Press’ can target selling their publications to interest groups,  niche markets.  Two Rivers probably refers to  the river Kennet and Thames that meet in downtown Reading. 

It publishes works that have general intereast and local significance, for example,  Adam Sowan’s history of street names ‘Abbatoirs Road to Zinzan Street’,  the works of the Reading local, international, performance poet (AFH),  and historical treasures such as history and analysis of what is thought to be the oldest written song in English (circa 13th century).  The manuscript of the song, a ‘rota’, was found in Reading Abbey and now lives in the British Museum. 

A wonderful pocket-sized book with many thematic block-prints and ebulant multilayered interpretations of the meanings of the rota.  A rota is a song intended to be sung in a round of several people….   Wikipedia describes the Reading Rota in a rather dull descriptive manner,  the author of the Two Rivers book explores possibilities with a cheeky enthusiasm and passion that makes the book a pleasure to read,  its style is pixie-years beyond Wikipedia.

…Sumer is icumin in….   there has been much singing in a broad Bristolian burr in the Wendy House recently,  though I haven’t managed to do the minimum 2 or three voices required for a rota.  I am,  at least,  not scaring the cats who defintiely prefer me not to sing in their presence.

 How apt that a small press based in Reading should publish a book about a hand written document found in Reading long ago.

Writing Instruments

including pens and pencils

excluding typewriters,  keyboards or other electronic writing instruments.  

Instruments just for writing.  No drawing incase the writing instruments revolt, explode or splat all over your bestest jumper.  I think they’re planning to ambush my clothes.