The Write Way

5 October 2007

Wedding Day Blues ...

Greetings,

Lavinia and Raoul have only just returned from one of their extended, and always mysterious, overseas trips, and Lavinia invited me around last week to chat while she set up their house after its time under dust covers. We hugged and talked non-stop over our double de-caff skinny lattés before she finally took a deep breath and dived into the first of many boxes waiting to be unpacked so the living room could be returned to its former glory.

Together, we put up Raoul's collection of ... thingummies (which we've come across before), rearranged her collection of French books and then it was time to put up the Family Photos. 

As we gently freed each one from its cocoon of bubble wrap, we were both transported back to the interesting times depicted, but none aroused as many memories as the wedding portrait of Lavinia. 

Examining the photo of her all decked out in her matrimonial glad rags, I vividly recalled the painstaking hours preparing her for her nuptials ... The agony at the hair salon as a swish of hairdressers tried to manoeuvre her diamanté tiara with detachable lace mantilla into place over the artificial stephanotis floral wreath she wore with such devastating effect ... The tantrums and tears when she realised she wouldn't be able to take her pet poodle, Spot, with her to the ceremony ... And the nightmare of getting her to stand still while we buttoned her into her Mediaeval reproduction floor-length satin gown with the batwing sleeves. This, however, paled into insignificance when compared to the nightmare that Raoul was to face later in the evening ... 

The ceremony and reception went off without a hitch, despite the misgivings expressed by many of us who'd witnessed the earlier events, and the real trouble didn't start until the happy couple had made their farewells and taken themselves off to their luxury accommodation. Now, I must tell you that while I wasn't present myself, I have the details of that night -- in all their horror -- firmly burnt into my little grey cells as a result of consoling a weeping Lavinia the following afternoon.

As I said, all went well until Raoul, having carried his blushing bride across the threshold, with just the teensiest hitch while he disentangled her batwings from the door handle, had dropped her, lovingly it must be said, on the soft duvet covering their heart-shaped bed, whereafter he reached around to gently peel his new bride from her gown ...

This, however, was not the simple task he had fantasised about in the weeks leading up to his wedding, for Lavinia's mother had made the dress herself, and what a production it was, dear reader, what a production!

Lavinia's mum was of the Old School and had raised her daughter accordingly, and Lavinia often told me how when cleaning her shoes, her mother always said, "People want to see a nice young person leaving them as well as coming ... So polish the back of your shoes as well as the front, or you're not leaving this house, my girl!"

So it was that when it came to designing a wedding gown, they were of one mind that the back should be as detailed as the front, and the devil, as we shall see, was in the detail.

While the back of Lavinia's wedding dress elicited a satisfying number of 'oohs' and 'aaahs' from the women at the wedding, it was quite simply the stuff of nightmares for any ardent groom, for it consisted of a row of tiny satin-covered buttons, each about the size of half a green pea, that nestled snugly (with snugly being the operative word) in its own little hand-made satin loop. 

His mother-in-law had thoughtfully supplied a crochet hook to assist in the derobing, but Raoul, not surprisingly given the circumstances, was all thumbs by this stage of the evening and found it difficult to wangle the tiny hook under the tiny buttons. But with the prize so tantalisingly close, he persevered, and Lavinia tearfully recounted how after an hour or more of his hot breath on her back and his less-than-gentle wrestling with her buttons, he finally, triumphantly, let out a whoop that could be heard throughout the luxury resort, "Forty-bloody-seven!" whereupon they both collapsed from emotional exhaustion and slept until lunch-time.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this didn't auger well for their future ... but here they are, all these years later, still happily together ... Although, perhaps their togetherness owes more to their genuine feelings for each other and less to "a boring tool, similar to but larger than a gimlet, consisting of a bit rotated by a transverse handle," which is, of course, what an auger is. This word comes from Middle English nauger (a nauger misdivided as an auger) as many other words were similarly misdivided by well-meaning scribes ... words such as a napron, a nadder and a numpire have become an apron, an adder and an umpire.)

But you know as well as I do that our attention has been diverted by these shiny, pointy things when we should have been looking at the verb that comes from our best mates, the Romans. The augurs were "a group of ancient Roman officials charged with observing and interpreting omens for guidance in public affairs," and we use this word as a verb to mean, "to predict, especially from signs or omens; to foretell."

Some people who don't know any better use the expression, "augurs well," when what they really mean is "all goes well."

And speaking of marriage, for those of you who may be contemplating taking the plunge (which I thoroughly recommend) some thoughts ...

I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage; they've experienced pain and bought jewellery. (Rita Rudner)

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong. (Milton Berle)

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. (George Burns)

This week's quiz:

Marriages are all about forging relationships between groups, so let's have a bit of a squiz at this tangled web we weave ... Match 'em up:

affinity, morganatic, primogeniture, distaff, removed, consanguinity, progenitor, agnate, endogamy, teknonymy

1. marriage within a specific tribe or similar social unit 

2. ancestor in the direct line; a forefather 

3. right of inheritance belongs exclusively to the eldest son 

4. indicates that the two people are from different generations 

5. noting, pertaining to, characteristic of, or suitable for a woman; female side of the family 

6. of a marriage between one of royal or noble birth and one of lower rank; valid but with the understanding that the rank of the inferior remains unchanged and offspring do not succeed to titles or property of the superior 

7. relationship by marriage (as between a husband and his wife's blood relations, or between a wife and her husband's blood relations) 

8. a relative whose connection is traceable exclusively through males; any male relation on the father's side 

9. the practice among certain peoples of renaming a parent after a child 

10. relationship by descent from a common ancestor; blood relationship 

We really do have a word for just about everything, don't we? Although there are a couple of notable exceptions in the field of relationships. We've already discussed what to call your Significant Other and made some enlightened suggestions for boy and girl cousins, but here's another one to ponder ... What do you call your aunts and uncles? I mean as a collective unit?

You don't have to say, "Both my grandmothers and grandfathers came to the wedding." You just have to say, "My grandparents came to the wedding."

You don't have to say, "All my brothers and sisters came to the wedding." You just have to say, "My siblings came to the wedding."

You don't have to say, "All my aunts and uncles came to the wedding." You just have to say, "..." Well, actually you DO have to say this, because we just don't have a collective term for aunts and uncles.

Just thought I'd throw that into the mix to give you something to chat about over the weekend ...

Last week's quiz:

Some words that relate to language this week ...

umlaut, tmesis, diacritic, ambigram, enjambment, diphthong, apodosis, antimetabole, caesura, chiasmus

1. a figure of speech in which the same words or ideas are repeated in transposed order e.g. the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. - ANTIMETABOLE

2. word that can be read from different angles and still be the same e.g. MOW, NOON - AMBIGRAM

3. inversion in the second of two parallel phrases; a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases e.g. He went to the country, to the town went she - CHIASMUS

4. two dots placed over a vowel in German to indicate a change in sound - UMLAUT  (See? This has nothing to do with breaking eggs and making breakfast!)

5. the interpolation of one or more words between the parts of a compound word, as be thou ware for beware - TMESIS (I think this is one of the most wonderful ironies in language ... that the word for putting bits in, actually looks as if it's left bits out! It comes from the Greek word tmesis 'a cutting.' )

6. a vowel sound that starts near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves toward the position for another; two vowel letters representing the sound of a single vowel - DIPHTHONG

7. pause within a line of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line; can occur anywhere within a line and need not be indicated by punctuation - CAESURA

8. a mark added to a letter to indicate a special pronunciation - DIACRITIC

9. in poetry, when one line ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning; also called a run-on line - ENJAMBMENT

10. the consequent clause or conclusion in a conditional sentence, expressing the result, and thus distinguished from the protasis or clause which expresses a condition - APODOSIS (Thus, in the sentence, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," the former clause is the protasis, and the latter the apodosis. ... Doesn't that make you really glad you didn't go to school in the first half of last century when you'd have been expected to know things like this?)

And some more thoughts on marriage ...

I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was Always.

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. (You'll find these and more here.)

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A Little Something Extra

My University days were spent studying Anthropology, as well as English Lit and History, and one of the major experts in the field was Margaret Mead ... My head used to spin with her accounts of Coming of Age in Samoa and Growing Up in New Guinea. It was all a revelation for an innocent gel from the suburbs!

So this week's LSE takes you into the wonderful world of MM ...

University of Southern Florida outline of her work: 

Of course, it had to happen, and now an Aussie anthropologist has presented a serious critique of Mead's work, showing that far from having the free and easy lifestyle that made us so envious of the Samoans teenagers in the Sixties, they were only joking the whole time.   

Word of the week: Avunculocal (adj) This is a kinship group organisation whereby, "a man, his wife or wives, his young sons and unmarried daughters, several of his sister's adolescent but unmarried sons, a sister's son who is married to his daughter, the young children of the latter couple, possibly other married nephews or daughters with their families, and occasionally even a grand nephew or two (live in a kinship group). In this instance the associated nuclear families are linked through two relationships, that between parent and daughter and that between maternal uncle and nephew. In some societies with this type of extended family, however, the nephew does not marry the daughter, so that the uncle-nephew link alone connects the associated nuclear families of adjacent generations." (Source) 

Now, if that doesn't make you appreciate your own, simple nuclear family, I don't know what will!

Oxymoron of the week: simple wedding

And here's a Latin phrase that we'd all like to be able to follow this weekend ...

Nihil agere delectat

[NEE-heel ah-GAY-ray day-LAYK-taht]

(It is a delight to do nothing)