"Until the interest of an artist shifts from the personal sensation to a sense of communal service his work cannot grow."
William Soutar, in 'Diaries of A Dying Man'.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Perth
http://lifesscience.blogspot.com/2009/10/nae-day-sae-dark.html
Later, back at McEwens, the necessary internet connections had yet to be restored and the payment had to be made manually by means of a triplicate paper set and a once commonplace but now practically forgotten plastic and metal machine; yet another anachronism.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Codswallop
Choosing to use the expression 'cod's wallop' in an email I used an internet search engine to check its correct spelling and found the following essay in 'Wikipedia'.
Meaning: Nonsense.
Origin: The origin of the term codswallop is unclear. The most widely quoted story has it that of Hiram Codd, an English soft drinks maker during the 1870s, who developed a technique for bottling lemonade. This process involved the insertion of a glass marble as a stopper into the neck of the bottle. When the bottle was shaken the resulting pressure from the fizzy pop forced the marble against the neck to form a seal.
The device was called, not unreasonably, the Codd Bottle.
Wallop is a slang term for beer, and beer drinkers would certainly be disdainful of bottled soft drinks. This slang term dates from around the early to mid 20th century. Eric Partridge, in A Dictionary of Slang, claims it as serviceman's slang and dates it from the 1930s. An early example of it in print comes in J B Priestley's Three men in new suits, 1945:
"It's drink... Booze or wollop... Nine times out of ten... you wake up in the morning... with the usual hangover."
It's not difficult to see how a soft drink in a Codd Bottle could have come to be called codswallop.
There's no actual evidence for that derivation though. In fact, such neat plausibility without evidence is often the mark of the linguistic mythology known as folk etymology. Look no further than these popular fallacies for confirmation of that.
The earliest known citation of the phrase in print is the script of a 1959 episode of the UK TV series 'Hancock's Half Hour'. The writers Galton and Simpson don't claim to have coined the phrase, which they say was in public circulation when the show was broadcast.
'A load of codswallop' sounds old and the Hiram Codd story has a certain appeal. The problem with the tale, apart from the lack of any supporting evidence, is the entirely implausible notion that the phrase was in popular circulation since 1870 but somehow didn't manage to get into print until 1959. That lack of printed record is despite the fact that an appeal for early citations that was made on national TV in the UK in 2006 failed to uncover any citations earlier than 1959. Also, if Mr. Codd's drink were the derivation we would expect to find early examples of the name in the form Codd's Wallop - but there aren't any such examples. That, along with the fact that the term 'wallop' itself wasn't associated with its 'drink/beer' meaning until well after Codd's death, makes the 'Codd's Wallop' derivation highly improbable.
The most likely explanation is that it is a made up nonsense word that just sounds right for its meaning.
Cod is a little-used slang word meaning 'to hoax or take a rise out of', known since at least 1873. It was used in much the same way we now use the verb 'to kid', as here in a quotation from 1884:
"Tha'st only coddin me as tha allus does; tha'l none tay me to see th' fair."
That could be the origin of the cod in 'codswallop', but that's just plausible speculation, which brings us back full circle.
Meaning: Nonsense.
Origin: The origin of the term codswallop is unclear. The most widely quoted story has it that of Hiram Codd, an English soft drinks maker during the 1870s, who developed a technique for bottling lemonade. This process involved the insertion of a glass marble as a stopper into the neck of the bottle. When the bottle was shaken the resulting pressure from the fizzy pop forced the marble against the neck to form a seal.
The device was called, not unreasonably, the Codd Bottle.
Wallop is a slang term for beer, and beer drinkers would certainly be disdainful of bottled soft drinks. This slang term dates from around the early to mid 20th century. Eric Partridge, in A Dictionary of Slang, claims it as serviceman's slang and dates it from the 1930s. An early example of it in print comes in J B Priestley's Three men in new suits, 1945:
"It's drink... Booze or wollop... Nine times out of ten... you wake up in the morning... with the usual hangover."
It's not difficult to see how a soft drink in a Codd Bottle could have come to be called codswallop.
There's no actual evidence for that derivation though. In fact, such neat plausibility without evidence is often the mark of the linguistic mythology known as folk etymology. Look no further than these popular fallacies for confirmation of that.
The earliest known citation of the phrase in print is the script of a 1959 episode of the UK TV series 'Hancock's Half Hour'. The writers Galton and Simpson don't claim to have coined the phrase, which they say was in public circulation when the show was broadcast.
'A load of codswallop' sounds old and the Hiram Codd story has a certain appeal. The problem with the tale, apart from the lack of any supporting evidence, is the entirely implausible notion that the phrase was in popular circulation since 1870 but somehow didn't manage to get into print until 1959. That lack of printed record is despite the fact that an appeal for early citations that was made on national TV in the UK in 2006 failed to uncover any citations earlier than 1959. Also, if Mr. Codd's drink were the derivation we would expect to find early examples of the name in the form Codd's Wallop - but there aren't any such examples. That, along with the fact that the term 'wallop' itself wasn't associated with its 'drink/beer' meaning until well after Codd's death, makes the 'Codd's Wallop' derivation highly improbable.
The most likely explanation is that it is a made up nonsense word that just sounds right for its meaning.
Cod is a little-used slang word meaning 'to hoax or take a rise out of', known since at least 1873. It was used in much the same way we now use the verb 'to kid', as here in a quotation from 1884:
"Tha'st only coddin me as tha allus does; tha'l none tay me to see th' fair."
That could be the origin of the cod in 'codswallop', but that's just plausible speculation, which brings us back full circle.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Mother X
At seven-thirty yesterday morning one of the team of people nursing my mother at St Margaret's Hospital phoned to say that her condition had deteriorated overnight and that they expected her soon to give up the ghost. I was not surprised by this. Since, over three weeks ago, the hospital first expressed their fears for mother's imminent demise her poorly condition appeared, until the middle of last week, to remain remarkably stable. Through recent days however, the draining of colour from her face and her need of an oxygen mask have been clearly indicative of a sharp decline in her condition.
Yesterday was a very long day. Soon after receiving the phone call, my sister and I and our respective partners, drove together to the hospital. Mother was unconscious, and although her lungs were obviously congested she was breathing regularly into her oxygen mask. The information her nursing team gave us suggested that we would not be staying long at her bedside but the morning passed slowly into afternoon with no noticeable change. We had in the room a newspaper, the truly awful 'Sunday Post', which we were each grateful to read from cover to cover. We read and re-read labels on bottles and jars, the essential trappings of hospital rooms. We talked about nothing. I was reminded of the passage in 'Wolf Solent' (Ch 24) in which Wolf, a bored schoolmaster, passes time allowing an ink-stain on his schoolroom wall to feed into his mind imaginings of escape. By early evening we were beginning to wonder quite what we should do, as far as we could see mother was again 'stable'. The hospital made a 'family room' available to us, somewhere we could, if necessary, take it in turns to rest through the night. But it was not to be necessary. Quite suddenly mother's breathing quietened and slowed until it finally, almost exactly twelve hours since the morning phone call, it stopped. Mother had lived over a month into her ninety-second year. He life had been a good life. For the better part of it she enjoyed comfortable abundance and good health; until last December she had never been admitted into a hospital as a patient. Her life ended apparently painlessly and peacefully.
Requiescecat in pace.
Yesterday was a very long day. Soon after receiving the phone call, my sister and I and our respective partners, drove together to the hospital. Mother was unconscious, and although her lungs were obviously congested she was breathing regularly into her oxygen mask. The information her nursing team gave us suggested that we would not be staying long at her bedside but the morning passed slowly into afternoon with no noticeable change. We had in the room a newspaper, the truly awful 'Sunday Post', which we were each grateful to read from cover to cover. We read and re-read labels on bottles and jars, the essential trappings of hospital rooms. We talked about nothing. I was reminded of the passage in 'Wolf Solent' (Ch 24) in which Wolf, a bored schoolmaster, passes time allowing an ink-stain on his schoolroom wall to feed into his mind imaginings of escape. By early evening we were beginning to wonder quite what we should do, as far as we could see mother was again 'stable'. The hospital made a 'family room' available to us, somewhere we could, if necessary, take it in turns to rest through the night. But it was not to be necessary. Quite suddenly mother's breathing quietened and slowed until it finally, almost exactly twelve hours since the morning phone call, it stopped. Mother had lived over a month into her ninety-second year. He life had been a good life. For the better part of it she enjoyed comfortable abundance and good health; until last December she had never been admitted into a hospital as a patient. Her life ended apparently painlessly and peacefully.
Requiescecat in pace.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
E-mail Posts
It is a cool grey morning here promising rain so giving me an opportunity to stay indoors to further my understanding of Google Blogger. I am typing this post to send to my blog as an e-mail, if I have set up my link correctly it will publish as a new post.
Friday, May 28, 2010
The Liquid Continent; Travels through Alexandria, Venice and Istanbul
In Perth yesterday a shower of hailstones drove me off the street and into Waterstone's Bookshop. From one of the many displays set up by staff to tempt browsers to buy I picked up 'The Liquid Continent' by Nicholas Woodsworth and began to read. Outside the store hailstones had turned to heavy rain; I read on. Invariably, when I am in a bookshop, I browse books that have either a title or a cover illustration that attracts me. More often than not, after being put off either by the testimonials on the back cover or the first pages of text I return browses picked up on spec to where I found them.
Far from putting me off, the first pages of 'The Liquid Continent' encouraged me to read on. I particularly enjoy reading stuff that expresses my own ideas more competently than I can; stuff to which I can contentedly nod. On page seven I read the following:
'And in all these places I came to the same conclusion: true Mediterraneans, if lesser in number these days, continue to use their physical senses in ways that most of us have forgotten. There is a kind of faux-peasant, goat-cheese-and-lavender sensuality about Provence, most of which emanates from glossy life-style magazines. But the Mediterranean also has a real sensuality, its own developed life of the senses. It comes from a direct contact with the immediate world, from the intimate attachment of individuals to simple things around them. Meditteraneans answer to the strong flavours and sensations of the landscapes they grow up in, to family and community, to the cyclical rhythms of the seasons, to routines of daily work, to old habits sustained through the ages.'
This is exactly how I see the folk I have lived amongst for the past dozen years!
Long before I had read to the end of the first chapter I was hooked. Rarely has it been such a pleasure for me to part with £8.99.
Far from putting me off, the first pages of 'The Liquid Continent' encouraged me to read on. I particularly enjoy reading stuff that expresses my own ideas more competently than I can; stuff to which I can contentedly nod. On page seven I read the following:
'And in all these places I came to the same conclusion: true Mediterraneans, if lesser in number these days, continue to use their physical senses in ways that most of us have forgotten. There is a kind of faux-peasant, goat-cheese-and-lavender sensuality about Provence, most of which emanates from glossy life-style magazines. But the Mediterranean also has a real sensuality, its own developed life of the senses. It comes from a direct contact with the immediate world, from the intimate attachment of individuals to simple things around them. Meditteraneans answer to the strong flavours and sensations of the landscapes they grow up in, to family and community, to the cyclical rhythms of the seasons, to routines of daily work, to old habits sustained through the ages.'
This is exactly how I see the folk I have lived amongst for the past dozen years!
Long before I had read to the end of the first chapter I was hooked. Rarely has it been such a pleasure for me to part with £8.99.
A Morning Stroll
This morning I took a walk up into the hills behind the house. It was a fine sunny morning but the air was decidedly cool; a gusty moderate to strong breeze did not help to make it feel any warmer. Consistent uphill strolling however, even at the leisurely pace I prefer to take, is good for keeping the body comfortably warm. I walked largely on good Forestry Commission tracks through conifer plantations the interiors of which are dark and apparently barren of any plant life. The tracks are bordered on both sides by wide verges on which a good variety of wild flowers and grasses prosper and there is plenty of evidence that these cuttings through the monoculture of softwood trees provide suitable environments for many mammals, birds and invertebrates. In an area that had been cleared and replanted recently I met a forester who was inspecting young trees for beetle damage. He told me how, increasingly over recent years, young trees are being attacked by a species of beetle that kills saplings by ring-barking them.I came across a stone, about a metre long, that had markings on it that looked as though they may have been deliberately inscribed at some time.
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