The Write Way

1 December 2006

I Didn't Know That!

Greetings,

Our little corner of the world has undergone a bit of a renaissance since we moved here a decade ago. Back then, there were the usual boring shops along the waterfront and a couple of dreary milk bars and pubs, but then people "discovered" the place and how lovely it was to sit outside and gaze across the Bay while indulging in the odd coffee ... or wine ... or whatever, so now we have wall-to-wall al fresco eateries. 

We can take a 20-minute stroll from our place and choose from any number of fashionable (and not-so fashionable) cuisines. Everything from the sushi train (great fun), to Italian, Indian, African, French, Mexican, Mediterranean and Aussie fusion to good old pub tucker with barbequed steaks, huge salads and wicked desserts. We've got it all!

So you won't be surprised when I confess that one of our favourite outings with friends is to do the rounds of these establishments. Even though we live within walking distance, when we go out with other people, we usually take it in turns to drive and chauffeur each other, and so it was that we were out driving with this particular couple several days ago.

It happened to be their turn to pick us up for one of our regular nosh-ups, and since the wife in this couple is just as happy with a soft drink as an alcoholic beverage, she's usually our designated driver. When we arrived at our destination, an eatery along the waterfront, we found a parking spot not far from the restaurant. For those of you gasping in wonder at this miracle, let me just say that despite the increase in development and population, parking around here is never the major headache it is in the city ... yet.

So as our friend began her reverse parallel parking then put the car in forward gear to give herself another shot at it, I glanced out the side window and said, "No. You're right. You've got lots of room behind still."

"But you can't see," protested my friend.

"I'm looking in the shop window," I explained, "I can see the reflection of this car and the one behind, and you've got lots of room."

The car came to a halt and there was silence.

"You're doing what?" she said.

"Looking in the shop wind..." I began and then stopped as I saw the stunned look on her face.

"I didn't know that," she said quietly. Then she turned and gave her husband a quick punch on the arm and said, "Why didn't you tell me I could do that? How did I get to be over 50 and not know that?"

I mentioned this little incident to another friend who laughed and said, "That's nothing! I never knew you had to burp Tupperware until a few months ago."

And as everyone knows, when the Big One drops, the only survivors will be cockroaches hiding in Tupperware ... but only if it's been burped!

I thought I'd had another of those I-didn't-know-that moments this week when I was watching a nature documentary on the telly. The screen was showing some cute, furry rodent-like creatures, while the voice-over was discussing how "stone martins" made themselves at home in historic churches and cathedrals throughout Europe.

I looked to the top of the screen to see if I could see the birds, because, surely, martins are birds. Well, I always thought they were. But as the commentary continued, it was clear that we were still referring to these furry rodents.

How did I get it so wrong, I wondered. And for all these years ...

This worried me all night, so of course, my first task in the morning was to head to my good mate, Google, to try to get to the bottom of this mystery. 

And what did I find, dear reader, but that Google is still my first-best friend ever! Because, of course, martins are birds, but martens most definitely are not.

Just by the by, do you remember when you were a kid and there were only around 26 animals in your sphere of knowledge? Just enough to have one for each letter of the alphabet. But now, there are so many wonderful animals that you get giddy just thinking about them.

And martens, for others whose education has been as sadly deprived as my own, are like little weasels - but cuter. Here's one. Is that a cute little face or what?

And this site has more information about martens in general, so you need never display your ignorance. 

So, what, I hear you ask, does this have to do with writing?

Not a thing ... I just wanted to tell you about my martin/marten epiphany!

What's that?

Well, I suppose you're right. Epiphany is not quite the right word, is it?

An Epiphany (with a capital) is "a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi."

It can also be "an appearance or manifestation as of a deity." 

But these days, we often use it to mean "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely or commonplace occurrence or experience."

It comes from the Greek prefix epi- meaning “upon, on, over, near, at, before, after" and phainein meaning "to appear."

Our daughter tells the story of the epiphany that occurred during her mandatory working-holiday year in the UK. Not long after she arrived, she'd met a Tall Scotsman a couple of years older than she was and had fallen in love. On the fateful day of her epiphany, they were on a leisurely tramp along a scenic coastal spot down south near Torquay with one of our daughter's visiting girlfriends. 

This particular spot was quite close to the edge of the water and they were forced to walk single file. The Tall Scotsman was in the lead, followed by our daughter then her friend. As they rounded a bend, they were presented with the vista of a sleepy coastal village, and the TS remarked that he wished he was old enough to retire to a place like that.

Apparently our daughter was struck as if by a lightning bolt by this revelation and came to such a sudden stop in the track that her friend ploughed into her and they both nearly fell to the ground.

As she told us later, she suddenly realised that this young man's single goal in life was to retire. And at that moment, the great accent and really nice way his eyes crinkled when he smiled notwithstanding, the Tall Scotsman was history!

Psst! Want to write a book? Then click to receive your email writing course to show you just how easy it is to write your own book!  (Just look for the yellow highlighting at the top of the page.)

Maybe you're thinking of writing a family history ... but you don't know how to go about finding information, then start with this article on using the census, then browse the other articles linked from this page. Why waste all this valuable family time over the coming holidays? 

Plan ahead. Work out what questions you want to ask and who you need to track down to get all the nitty-gritty on your family. If you're not sure where people are, you can even use the natty search facility. (Look for the highlighted link to Find Anyone Today.) And have fun! Researching your family is a fascinating pastime ... 

This week's quiz:

Here are some of those amazing animals we share our planet with ...match 'em up:

capybara, bongo, jerboa, pangolin, kinkajou, okapi, tarsier, echidna, nilgai, coatimundi

1. burrowing spine-covered monotreme of Australia having a long snout and claws for hunting ants and termites; spends most of its time alone, burrowing in the ground and catching insects with its long sticky tongue 

2. mouse-sized rodent; can leap ten feet in a single bound; never drinks, relying only on the moisture found in the bugs and plants that it eats 

3. nocturnal arboreal primate of Indonesia and the Philippines having huge eyes and digits ending in pads to facilitate climbing; the only primate that spurns all plant material as food living entirely on insects and small vertebrates 

4. world's largest rodent; its semi-webbed feet help make it a good swimmer, and it spends much of its time around water or wallowing in mud 

5. arboreal fruit-eating mammal of tropical America with a long prehensile tail; kind of lemur 

6. toothless mammal of southern Africa and Asia having a body covered with horny scales and a long snout for feeding on ants and termites; scaly, short-legged mammal that comes out at night to search for bugs; has no teeth, but its sticky tongue can stretch two feet long 

7. large forest antelope of central Africa having a reddish-brown coat with white stripes and spiral horns 

8.  tropical American carnivore, related to the raccoon, having an elongated body, long, ringed tail and a slender, flexible snout 

9. large Indian antelope; male is blue-grey with white markings; female is brownish with no horns 

10.similar to the giraffe but smaller with much shorter neck and stripe on the legs 

And since we've been chatting about animals ...

"The summer of my Junior year in college, I worked at a horse ranch in
El Paso. Our first assignment was to lead a herd of young horses to
Albuquerque. Everything started out well but by the time we reached
the sand flats in Alamogordo, one of the mares decided to go into
labor. We stopped and helped the mare deliver a healthy young colt.

"It was important that we arrive in Albuquerque on time and the brood
mare and her young were certainly in no condition to join the others
on the march. So we rounded-up the herd after constructing a carrier
out of one of the wagons and we transported the mare and colt in this
way.

"We did arrive in Albuquerque on schedule, but it was tricky traveling
across those New Mexico sand flats. On describing this leg of our
trip, my foreman commented, 'A foal and his mommy are dune
carted'."

Last week's quiz:

Here are some interesting words ... all are blends of two other words that obviously fill a void for many of us (the trick is to see if you know which words are blended):

alphabet, phoneme, brunch, electrocution, permaculture, triticale, pixel, bodacious

1. an electronic device that makes possible the transmission of data to or from a computer via telephone or other communication lines - MODEM (from mo(dulator)-dem(odulator)

2. a meal that serves as both breakfast and lunch - BRUNCH (breakfast and lunch)

3. system of perennial agriculture emphasising the use of renewable natural resources and the enrichment of local ecosystems - PERMACULTURE (from permanent agriculture)

4. smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a video display system - PIXEL (from picture and element)

5. letters of a language in their customary order - ALPHABET (from the first two letters of the Greek language: alpha and beta)

6. thorough; blatant; unmistakable; remarkable; outstanding - BODACIOUS (from bold and audacious)

7. to kill by electricity - ELECTROCUTION (from electricity and execution)

8. a semiconductor device that amplifies, oscillates or switches the flow of current between two terminals by varying the current or voltage between one of the terminals and a third: although much smaller in size than a vacuum tube, it performs similar functions without requiring current to heat a cathode - TRANSISTOR (from transfer and resistor)

9. hybrid cereal grain - TRITICALE (produced by crossing wheat, Triticum aestivum, and rye, Secale cereale)

10. any of a small set of units, usually about 20 to 60 in number, and different for each language, considered to be the basic distinctive units of speech sound by which morphemes, words and sentences are represented - PHONEME (from phonetics and scheme - although there's some dispute here. Some declare it's from the Greek phonein 'to produce a sound.')

Holiday time is movie time, so here are some reminders about what to expect in that parallel universe we know as Hollyweird ...

All movie mothers will prepare a breakfast, usually consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, etc. Dad and the kids will invariably arrive at the table 30 seconds before Dad has to leave for the office and the kids have to catch the school bus. Each will have time only for a sip of coffee/juice and/or one bite of toast. (There must be enough food left over in these homes to feed an emerging nation!)

Any apartment in Paris will have a view of the Eiffel Tower.

High-class strippers with a heart of gold can operate most heavy equipment.

When men drink whiskey, it is always in a shot glass, and they always drink it in one gulp. If they are wimps, they will gasp for air, then have a coughing fit. If they are macho, they will wince briefly, flashing clenched teeth.

When a character picks up a bottle of whiskey or a pack of cigarettes, the label will always be clearly visible.

Archives

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Don't forget to bookmark the page when you get there ... or even make it your Home Page. (For Internet Explorer, just click on Tools ... Internet Options ... General ... fill in www.write101.com/archives/index.htm and click OK. For Netscape, select Edit ... Preferences. Then select Navigator from the left menu, click Home Page and enter the URL above next to Location and click OK. For all the flash new browsers, you'll have to do a search on my mate google to find what to do. There's a search box on the archives page!)

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Never-Ending Story

An Ape that wants to play Hamlet after being type-cast as King Kong, a talking anvil and that rottweiller ... Dr Morgenes is still caught in the nightmare that is the casting couch. Help him find a plot!  Just click on the Comments button at the end of the entry to add your contribution. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them).

Map of the World

I often trawl this for comments to post on my site ... so if you say something about the newsletter or site, be warned, you may end up being read by one of the 2,000+ unique visitors who visit Write101 every day! Make your Mark on the World. Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark. 

A Little Something Extra

The end of the year is not just a time to spend too much money on gifts that people will exchange as soon as the shops re-open; it's not just a time for over-indulging; it's not even just a time for spreading peace and goodwill to all ... No, boys and girls, the end of the year is also the time for that most terrifying of prospects ... giving a speech in public!

Whether it's farewelling a work colleague or thanking staff or just getting up in front of all the rellies at your annual Family Do,  being the centre of attention like this can be a daunting experience for most of us, as public speaker Roger Seip well knows:

"What's scarier to most Americans than spiders, heights, or even death? There hasn't been a horror movie made about it yet, but more than 75% of Americans surveyed report that they suffer from "glossophobia," a debilitating fear of public speaking. Statistically, far more of us claim that we would prefer death to giving a speech; even comedian Jerry Seinfeld used to joke that at a funeral, most people would rather be lying in the casket than delivering the eulogy."

But there are ways to overcome this terror, and it's not just our 'Murkin cousins who suffer! ... Read on: http://www.write101.com/publicspeaking.htm 

Word of the week: Prelapsarian (adj) characteristic of or pertaining to any innocent or carefree period

This very useful word comes from the Latin prefix pre (before) and lapsus (fall) and can be used to describe those halcyon days of our collective youth. You know - before television, before Maccas, before all those things that are wrong with the world ...

Oxymoron of the week: Income release (there'll be a lot of this over the next few weeks!)

And since we're now officially entering the Silly Season, here's a conversation filler for your next social gathering ... in Latin, of course!

Vidistine nuper imagines moventes bonas? 

[wee-dees-TEEN-ay NOO-payr ee-mah-GEEN-ays moh-WAYN-tays BOH-nahs]

(Seen any good movies lately?)