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The
Write Way
30 May 2008 I've Got My Aubergines ... Greetings, Aubergines ... Eggplant ... You know, those beautiful-looking vegies that I've never been able to convince my family taste as good as they look! Yes, I've tried every way of presenting them from Baba Ganoush to Moussaka and all points in between, but to no avail. Still, they do look pretty with their beautiful, purple, glossy plumpness. However, we're not off on a gastronomic adventure today, but a musical one, which started when I heard a song on the radio last week while I was doing a spot of housework and started bopping around with my duster as I sang along, "I've got my aubergines on ..." In my defence, I have to say that I was concentrating on what I was going to serve friends who were coming for dinner later in the week, so I may not have had all my little grey cells quite in sync with the lyrics, but after a couple of choruses, even I twigged that there was something not quite right about the song (and it wasn't all to do with the fact that I can't hold a note to save myself). Yes, dear reader, you've guessed. I was another sad victim of the mondegreen ... misheard lyric syndrome. But there I was, for what it's worth, warbling away as I dusted and polished my way around the house, and dredging up other fine examples of the genre as I went ... Maybe it was because I was in culinary mode, but many of the lyrics that floated to the surface of my tiny mind had a definite vegetable orientation ... I wiped down the bathroom tiles to the accompaniment of "Baking carrot biscuits" then switched to "Got a lot of lucky peanuts" as I polished the sideboard in the lounge room. Then it was onto that Christmassy favourite, "Sleep in heavenly peas" as I rearranged the pillows on the chaise longe. Wandering into the kitchen for a well-earned cuppa, I finished off with that sweet ballad, "Donuts make my brown eyes blue" (not strictly a vegetable, I know, but a cousin of food nonetheless. Nothing like a bit of music to lighten the load, is there? And speaking, as we were, of things musical, this seems like the perfect time to casually drop into the conversation a reference to my son's website. You've met our son and heir a number of times in the past (most embarrassingly for him when he (and his then wife) went on national television and ... but I better not mention that ... . As you know, he was born with a guitar in his hands (almost!) and has rarely put it down since. Click now to pop in and visit his website. Click on the 'Listen to Lach' link to ... listen to Lach! And if you're furrowing your brow and worrying about that piece of furniture in my house, it's all right, really. Those comfy single lounges that look long chairs are just that ... a long chair, or as our French cousins first dubbed them: the "chaise longue." We've chatted before about all the words we've borrowed from other languages and how this pinching ... er ... borrowing has enriched English no end. Sometimes we nick the entire term (as with our chairs), other times, we use a mixture of terms to describe different versions of the same thing, such as axe and hatchet. 'Axe' is the fine old Anglo-Saxon implement, while the more refined and smaller version takes its name from the French. It's the same with some animals ... the English hunted hares for their Sunday dinner, the French eyed off the leveret; the English admired the swans on the lake, the French kept watch for the cygnets. This week's Little Something Extra has a list of scores of French terms we use and also an old friend ... that hilarious menu of mangled English we met a couple of years ago. (And you'll find a key to the mondegreens ...) This week's quiz: Match each word with its synonym:
There was once a very smart horse. Anything it was shown, it mastered easily, until one day, its teachers tried to teach it about rectangular coordinates, and it couldn't understand them. All the horse's acquaintances and friends tried to figure out what was the matter and couldn't. Then a new fellow looked at the problem and said, "Of course he can't do it. Why, you're putting Descartes before the horse!" Last week's quiz: Let's see if you know the pointy end from the blunt end of a boat ... match up these terms: frigate, barque, caravel, galley, bilander, clipper, brig, cutter, dhow, galleon 1. a single-masted sailing vessel, very similar to a sloop but having its mast set somewhat farther astern, about two-fifths of the way aft measured on the water line - CUTTER 2. sailing vessels used by Arabs on the east African, Arabian and Indian coasts, generally lateen-rigged on two or three masts - DHOW 3. two-masted sailing vessel square-rigged on both masts - BRIG 4. sailing ship built and rigged for speed, esp. a type of three-masted ship with a fast hull form and a lofty rig, built in the U.S. from c1845, and in Great Britain from a later date, until c1870, and used in trades in which speed was more important than cargo capacity - CLIPPER 5. a sailing ship with 3 (or more) masts - BARQUE 6. a large sailing vessel of the 15th to the 17th centuries used as a fighting or merchant ship, square-rigged on the foremast and mainmast and generally lateen-rigged on one or two after masts - GALLEON 7. a seagoing vessel propelled mainly by oars, used in ancient and medieval times, sometimes with the aid of sails - GALLEY 8. small two-masted merchant vessel, fitted only for coasting, or for use in canals, as in Holland - BILANDER 9. three-masted fast naval vessel of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, generally having a lofty ship rig and heavily armed on one or two decks - FRIGATE 10.small 16th century vessel with broad bows, high, narrow poop, four masts and lateen sails - CARAVEL Did you know that every newsletter is archived? So if you've missed anything since 1998 or want to revisit some favourites, you can do so any time! 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!) If you've received this little missive from a friend, you can get your very own issue, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every Friday morning by clicking here: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogrups.com And I'm even prepared to offer a shameless bribe. 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). 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. Did you know that the Romans didn't find algebra very challenging? X was always 10. And a little tale with a warning about lying in the sun ... Two robins were sitting in a tree. "I'm really hungry" said the first one. "Let's fly down and find some lunch." They flew down to the ground and found a nice plot of newly plowed ground that was full of worms. They ate and ate and ate till they could eat no more. "I'm so full. I don't think I can fly back up into the tree," said the first one. "Let's just lie back here and bask in the warm sun," said the second. "OK," said the first. So they plopped down basking in the sun. No sooner than they had fallen asleep when a big fat tomcat sneaked up on them and ate them both. As the cat sat washing his face after his meal, he thought, "I just love Baskin Robins." A Little Something Extra Here's a comprehensive list of French terms we've made almost our own: And since we've been talking about words we borrow from other languages ... what happens when other languages try to borrow English words? Grab a hanky and click here to find out. For those of you going batty trying to work out those songs I was singing, relax ... "I've Got My Aubergines ..." (I've Got My Old Blue Jeans On) "Baking carrot biscuits" (Taking Care of Business) "Got a lot of lucky peanuts" (Got a Lot of Love to Give) "Sleep in heavenly peas" (Sleep in Heavenly Peace) Word of the week: circumbendibus (noun) This long word is one of those delightful ironies in English ... it means talking around and around in circles; circumlocution. And it's one of those words that's a combination of the old and the new. It begins with Latin 'circum' (around), whacks in an English word 'bend,' then finishes with another Latin flourish in the suffix -ibus. Oxymoron of the week: Clear lyrics And here are some of your favourite bands ... as the Romans would have known them: Lapides Provolventes (The Rolling Stones) Mortui Grati (The Grateful Dead) Simiatores (The Monkees) Did you know that you can have your very own Latin reminders? How about undies proclaiming, Bene est rex esse? (It's good to be king) Or a shopping bag that warns, Emptrix nata sum (Born to shop)? Kind regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Just $17 a year seems a small price to pay for all this wit and wisdom, don't you think? C'mon, that's just a tad more than 30 cents a week! 1.Toss a few pennies into my Running Away Fund at PayPal (Send to jennifer @ write101.com ... without the spaces, of course) OR 2. Click here to subscribe for a full year OR 3. Use your credit card on my secure order form. (You can also access the PayPal subscription link from this page if the link above didn't work for you. With PayPal, you can use your credit card, PayPal account or pay online using your own cheque account.) OR 4. Send a cheque (made payable to Jennifer Stewart) To unsubscribe from this list, send
a blank email to: mailto:WritingTips- Copyright Jennifer Stewart 2008 Individual articles copyrighted by their authors. |
