The Write Way

17 August 2007

All in Good Time ...

Greetings,

We've just returned from one of our regular driving trips Down South to visit our daughter in Melbourne. As always, the time went too fast and soon we were on our way home, but via Eden, where we stayed for a few days to help the Love of My Life's mum celebrate her 93rd birthday. Yes, the women in our family have this longevity thing all wrapped up!

You should be familiar with both places by now, since we've been making this pilgrimage for some years -- see here and here.  

Our sojourn in Melbourne always includes dinner on the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant  ... and it's a little ripper! There are lovely old Pullman-style tramcars, great food and excellent staff who keep topping up your glass as you clatter sedately around the streets of Melbourne and watch the rest of the world dashing hither and thither.

When every other city in the country was ripping up its tramlines at the insistence of the fuel company, car manufacturer and auto association lobbies in the 60s, Melbourne held out because, "between 1949 and 1970 the redoubtable Major-General Sir Robert Risson ran the tram system in Melbourne. He was a Major-General, retired, after the Second World War and he loved trams." (Source) Oh, that we'd all had a Robert Risson!

Trams are very efficient at moving huge numbers of people ... I read an article that listed some of the statistics ... back in 1945, Brisbane trams moved 160 million people a year ... and Sydney trams shifted 400 million about their business and leisure. And that was when the population of the entire country was only around 10 million!

Another must-do on each winter visit is a trip to an AFL game at the Dome. This is one of those whizz-bang sporting venues that would have made the Romans weep ... It comes complete with a retractable roof so events can go ahead even with the infamous Melbourne weather. 

The Dome can hold around 74,000, but because it's readily equipped with wide vomitoria (which also would make the Romans green with envy) and is conveniently located near the Southern Cross train station and serviced by numerous tram routes, crowds like this are quickly dispersed, and 30 minutes after a game, there are only a few die-hard fans hanging about conducting post mortems. We marvel at it every time we go!

So winter is eating and footy time in Melbourne, and by the time we get to Eden, we're getting close to whale time. Whales were, I'm embarrassed to say, hunted extensively from a base in Twofold Bay from the 1830s until the 1930s. More recently, the good people of Eden have seen the error of their ways and the place has changed from a whaling station that "processed" whales to a centre for whale-watching. (You can see some happy snaps of what it's like in Eden now.)

And this brings us, dear reader, slightly overweight from all the food enjoyed on the Tramcar, puffed from our excursion to the footy and wringing our hands at the past plight of the whales, to one of those delightful little exchanges that just make you shake your head and wonder how some people land their jobs ...

It happened as we were driving into Eden and had switched the radio to the local station; we were in time to hear the tail-end of an interview between a Bright Young Thing and someone from one of the whale-watching boats who was saying as we tuned in, "So the whales pass Eden on their annual migration from the Antarctic to the Great Barrier Reef."

"And," says our ace reporter, composing an in-depth question, "how often do they do this?"

Sigh ...

We have lots of words to describe the passage of time, just so people like our BYT can keep track of it:

annual - occurring yearly

biannual OR semi-annual - occurring twice a year

biennial - occurring every second year

triennial - occurring every three years OR lasting three years

perennial - recurring year after year

diurnal - occurring during the day

nocturnal - occurring at night

vernal - occurring in spring

estival - occurring in summer

autumnal - occurring in autumn

hibernal OR brumal - occurring in winter

As everybody knows, while it's always great to travel and visit, it's also wonderful to get back home! And when you get this sort of welcome from dear old Mother Earth, you can see why we love being back. (Scroll to the end of the page for the last photo to see what I mean.)

And here's a little story I found when I asked my mate Google for something about Time ...

On some air bases the Air Force is on one side of the field and civilian aircraft use the other side of the field, with the control tower in the middle.

One day the tower received a call from an aircraft asking, "What time is it?" The tower responded, "Who is calling?" The aircraft replied, "What difference does it make?" The tower replied "It makes a lot of difference.

1) If it is an American Airlines flight, it is 3 o'clock.
2) If it is an Air Force plane, it is 1500 hours.
3) If it is a Navy aircraft, it is 6 bells.
4) If it is an Army aircraft, the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 3.
5) If it is a Marine Corps aircraft, it's Thursday afternoon and 120 minutes to "Happy Hour."

This week's quiz:

Here are some more words about time ...

trieteric, enneatic, solstice, equinox, undecennial, vicennial, quinquennial, quindecennial, septenary, semicentennial

1. occurring once every 20 years 

2. either of the two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator 

3. of or pertaining to a period of 15 years or the 15th occurrence of a series, as an anniversary 

4. (festival) occurring each third year (i.e. in alternate years) 

5. occurring once in every period of eleven years 

6. lasting seven years 

7. occurring once in every nine times, days, years, etc.; every ninth 

8. of or relating to or marking the 50th anniversary 

9. either of two times of the year when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator and day and night are of equal length 

10. occurring once in five years, or at the end of every five years; also, lasting five years 

And one overheard conversation about time:

Woman: "It's 11:25PM."

Person of indeterminate hair colour: (confused look on face) "You know, it's the weirdest thing, I've asked that question thirty times today, and every time someone gives me a different answer."

Last week's quiz:

demotic, quab, nonpareil, aglet, refulgent, antimacassar, googol, enate, sobriquet, antonomasia

1. the figure 1 followed by 100 zeroes (10 raised to the hundredth power) - GOOGOL

2. a relative on your mother's side - ENATE

3. something or someone very immature or underdeveloped - QUAB

4. the metal or plastic bit over the end of a shoelace to stop it from fraying - AGLET

5. colloquial, common or of the people - DEMOTIC

6. substituting a title for a proper name, the use of 'your majesty' or 'great one' would be such a case - ANTONOMASIA

7. a name, nickname or pseudonym - SOBRIQUET

8. shining brightly, resplendent, illustrious - REFULGENT

9. something without equal; a peerless thing or person - NONPAREIL

10.a covering originally thrown over the backs and arms of sofas and chairs to protect them from the hair oil worn by men of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries - ANTIMACASSAR

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A Little Something Extra

This week, let's ponder questions and their importance in communication ...

Brevity. Saying what needs to be said in the least number of words; it's a challenge for most of us, including many professional writers and speakers. Mark Twain famously noted that if he'd had more time, he'd have written a shorter letter.

This is also true of the art and science of asking questions, and remember that good questions are critical in effective communication.

I used to be a radio news reporter and announcer, so I've asked more than my share of unscripted questions. And, I'll admit it can be just as difficult to ask a concise question as it is to write a concise document.

In asking questions, and especially when we do it without notes, several things happen. First, we try to provide context that guides the answer. For example, consider the reporter who asks this kind of question: "Given that we only have another two months before the end of the season, and given that you're having trouble meeting your budget as it is, do you expect the expansion to proceed?" The concise question, of course, would simply be, "Do you expect the expansion to proceed?"

To avoid this kind of preamble and to make your question more concise ...

Read  Robert F. Abbott's advice on how to ask effective questions. 

Word of the week: temporaneous (adj) lasting only a short while

This big word describing a tiny time comes from the Latin tempus, meaning 'time.'

Oxymoron of the week:  Briefing ... you know those long meetings that just go on and on and on ...

This week's Latin phrase is good advice all about time ...

Festina Lente

[fay-STEEN-ah LAYN-tay]

(Make haste slowly)