26 January 2007

Once Upon a Time ...

Greetings,

Don't be alarmed. I haven't lost all my marbles ... Well, not yet, anyway. I just thought it would be interesting to have a bit of a look at a few of those stories and rhymes so many of us grew up with. I mean, have you ever really looked closely at some of the words? 

Scary stuff!

It makes me wonder how some of them got past the censors. The powers-that- be censored Noddy and Big Ears, Little Black Sambo and even Little Red Riding Hood at one stage, but have left untouched some of the more bizarre stories.

So while Noddy and Co are condemned to a plain brown wrapper, what's left for the kiddies to read?

How about the story of trolls that hide under bridges and threaten a family of dear old billy-goats that walk across?  Here's how that charming little tale ends: 

Well, come along! I've got two spears,
And I'll poke your eyeballs out at your ears;
I've got besides two curling-stones,
And I'll crush you to bits, body and bones.

Ah yes, just the thing to soothe the littlies to sleep at night.

Or what about ogres that live at the top of garden vegetables and sniff out the blood of their victims and then grind their bones into bread? 

And what sort of warped mind came up with the story of two little children abandoned in a forest by their parents, then enticed into a witch's house where they were to be killed, cooked and eaten?  

It makes you long for some good old fashioned Nursery Rhymes, doesn't it? 

Ummm ... how about the lovely story of a little boy and a girl who go for a walk and the boy falls down and smashes his head open and then the girl tumbles down after him?

No?

Then the poignant tale of a baby being gently rocked to sleep in a tree and then plummeting to the ground is sure to please.

No again?

What about the story of the sight-challenged mice that were chased and tortured by the spouse of an agricultural worker?

Still not impressed?

What to do?

I know! Write your own verse.

This week's Little Something Extra has some pointers on just how to do this, and I've found some valuable sites for those of you who want to try your hand at writing in rhyme.

Rhymezone gives you words and syllables that rhyme, as well as definitions, quotations containing your selected word and lots more. 

Rhymer lets you find rhymes for every part of your word, not just the last syllable. 

McGill English Dictionary of Rhyme is a freeware downloadable dictionary of rhymes:  (I haven't tried this, so proceed at your own risk ... but it looks good!)

You can see a list of some more of those banned books I mentioned earlier ... Read 'em and weep, boys and girls. 

And don't you love this comment from the Library of Virginia site? 

Mark Twain once wrote, "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards."

This week's quiz:

Try these unusual words ... not all have made it into mainstream dictionaries (but all are to be found in legitimate - if specialist - dictionaries) :

cruciverbalist, diaeresis, labiomancy, pusillanimous, matutinal, trichology, prosopagnosia, apolaustic, expiscate, pandiculation

1. pertaining to or occurring in the morning; early in the day 

2. inability or difficulty in recognising familiar faces; it may be congenital or result from injury or disease of the brain 

3. designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles 

4. to find out by thorough and detailed investigation; discover through scrupulous examination 

5. the branch of medicine that deals with the scientific study of the hair and its diseases 

6. the separation of two adjacent vowels, dividing one syllable into two; a sign (two dots) placed over the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate separate pronunciation, as in one spelling of the older forms naïve 

7. wholly devoted to the seeking of enjoyment

8. the interpretation of movements of head, lips and face as an aid to communication by speech 

9. a stretching and stiffening especially of the trunk and extremities (as when fatigued and drowsy or after waking from sleep) 

10.lacking courage; cowardly; faint-hearted 

And, of course, I have no choice in this ... given the nature of this week's ramble, I must drag these Children's Book Titles You'll Never See on the Shelves out of the closet again. (For obvious reasons, don't show these to any minors!)

1. You Are Different and That's Bad

2. The Boy Who Died from Eating All His Vegetables

3. Dad's New Wife, Robert

4. Fun Four-letter Words to Know and Share

5. Hammers, Screwdrivers and Scissors: An I-Can-Do-It Book

6. The Kids' Guide to Hitchhiking

7. Kathy Was So-o-o Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her

8. Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence

9. The Magic World Inside the Abandoned Refrigerator

10. The Little Sissy Who Snitched

11. The Pop-Up Book of Human Anatomy

12. That's It, I'm Putting You Up for Adoption

13. Grandpa Gets a Casket

14. Strangers Have the Best Candy

15. Things Rich Kids Have, But You Never Will

16. Eggs, Toilet Paper and Your School

17. Why Can't Mr Fork and Ms Electrical Outlet Be Friends?

18. Whining, Kicking and Crying to Get Your Way

19. You Were an Accident

20. Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

Last week's quiz:

aerolite, magma, black dwarf, quark, quasar, Astronomical Unit, dorsum, Doppler Effect, nadir, H

1. the point directly below an observer - NADIR

2. a small, very dense, cold, dead star; made mostly of carbon; about the size of the Earth (but tremendously heavier) - BLACK DWARF

3. distant star-sized energy source in space with excess of ultraviolet; some give off large amounts of radiation, including radio waves and X-rays (but some are radio-quiet) - QUASAR (The word quasar is short for quasi-stellar radio objects)

4. an increase or decrease in wavelength as the object emitting the wave moves relative to the observer - DOPPLER EFFECT (For example, a train whistle seems to be higher in pitch when the train is approaching you (the waves are compressed, shortening the wavelength), and lower in pitch when it is traveling away from you (the waves are elongated, lengthening the wavelength). The same thing happens with light waves when the light source is coming or going relative to us. For example, when a star is travelling away from Earth, its light appears redder (the light waves are elongated, lengthening the wavelength); this is called the red shift. The expansion of the universe was discovered when E. Hubble observed that the light from almost all other galaxies was red-shifted.)

5. a stony meteorite consisting of silicate minerals - AEROLITE

6. an asteroid's absolute magnitude, the visual magnitude the asteroid would have if it were located 1 AU from Earth - H (now that's an easy one to spell!)

7. subatomic particles that may be the fundamental constituents of baryons (like protons and neutrons) and mesons (like pions and kaons); have mass, charge (plus or minus 1/3 or 2/3), and spin. There are six types: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom - QUARK And just to round out your knowledge of quarks ... Baryons are made of 3 quarks each (protons and neutrons are made of up and down quarks); mesons are made of 2 quarks (a quark and an anti-quark). See? And you thought this was difficult!

8. the mean (average) distance from the Earth to the Sun, about 93 million miles (150 million km); it takes takes a beam of light about 8.3 minutes to travel 1 of these - ASTRONOMICAL UNIT

9. molten rock (lava) from which igneous rock forms - MAGMA

10. ridge on a planet's surface - DORSUM

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

"Dr. Seuss did it, and in the process changed the face of the publishing industry and became a beloved household name to children for several generations. So why do so many editors say they don't want stories written in rhyme?"

Find out why you can still write in rhyme ... and how to do it.  

And read more articles about writing for children (and just writing in general). 

Word of the week:  The Cock Horse of the nursery rhyme isn't a dodgy horse or even a particularly well-endowed one; it is, in fact, the HIPPALEKTRYON. This was a mythical beast with the foreparts of a horse and the tail, wings and hind-legs of a rooster ... (the cock and the horse). See a picture here: http://www.theoi. com/Ther/ Hippalektryon. html 

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross

To see a fine lady upon a white horse.

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

She shall have music wherever she goes.

This is what wikipedia has to say on the topic:

"Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross is a nursery rhyme connected with the English town Banbury. The stone cross of the title was destroyed by anti-Catholic Puritans in 1602 who were opposed to the notion of pilgrimages, but it was replaced in 1858. The nursery rhyme was first seen in print in 1784, however it was probably known well before then.

"One unproven legend holds that the "fine lady" was Lady Godiva. Another suggestion links her with the wealthy Fiennes (pronounced 'fines') family that had married into the Saye family of nearby Broughton Castle; the lady may have arrived in Banbury by stagecoach and completed the 3-mile journey to the castle on one of the castle's superior horses. Another theory is that the 'fine lady' describes the Welsh Goddess Rhiannon, who was said to have ridden a white horse. The "cock horse" is usually identified as a hobby-horse — though it may be an unknown term for 'stallion'."

Ah! But we now know better, don't we?

Oxymoron of the week: Accurate horoscope

And this week's Latin phrase should be enough to inspire all of us:

Initium est dimidium facti

[een-eet-EE- oom EST deem-eed-EE- oom FAHK-tee]

(Once you've started, you're halfway there)