12 February 2010

So Close ...

Greetings,

Have you ever stopped to think how amazing it is that you're you ... and you're here? Think of all the factors that could have made you an entirely different person, and I don't just mean all the millions of possible "yous" that could have been at the moment of conception, but all the other events that came before; things that could have prevented your very existence.

I started thinking about this last week when I was dusting (always a good time for some Deep and Meaningful conversations with yourself, I find). So there I was, up to the bookcase that has our family treasures -- my grandmother's collection of books she brought out with her when she moved to Australia as a young woman. These old books aren't valuable as antiques, being very well-read and well-loved, but they're priceless to us.

When she sailed out, Grandma brought with her a number of small books (easy to pack and carry), but far from being the early-20th century equivalents of bodice-rippers, her collections consisted of the collected works of Wordsworth, Cowper, Longfellow and Tennyson, plus a copy of Shakespeare's Henry V that she was reading when she landed in 1912.

I know for a fact that she was reading this, because on the front cover, just under her name and address (written in beautiful copperplate by the person who gave her the book) she's noted in pencil "Landed Australia, Oct 2nd 1912."

Her copy is "The Stage Shakespeare," and it contains "8 Pages of Illustrations, Glossary, Etc." The first of these illustrations is a photo of Mr George Rignold as Henry V, and I like to think that perhaps my Grandma went to see the production starring Mr George Rignold. Maybe she went with some of her young women friends (with a chaperone, of course) and maybe they even had a tiny crush on George, and that was why she chose this as her reading material on the long voyage out.

The other book I lingered over was her copy of Tennyson's works. This came into our family when my dad returned from the war and Grandma gave him all her books, which is how I came to grow up with them. Dad would read me all his favourite poems, Excelsior, The Village Blacksmith, The Wreck of the Hesperus and more, and Tennyson's poetry was as familiar to me as nursery rhymes, so when I started school and other children were reciting Mother Goose, I could rattle off the Lady of Shalott.

Tennyson's book is a special volume with gilt-edged pages, a fine ink portrait of the man himself protected by a tissue-paper leaf at the front of the book, and in between pages 526 and 527, there's a small newspaper cutting that has been there since Grandma placed it in the book some time during the First World War. The pages are stained from the newspaper and and the cutting is brown with age, but it still clearly shows the head and shoulders of a gentle-looking young man wearing a WW1 British Naval uniform. (See photos here )

The caption tells us that this is Lieut. Henry Russell Gold of the RNVR (Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves). Lieut. Gold was "a teacher in Greenfield School, a fine baritone singer ... a well-known member of the Hamilton Select Choir" ... and he was killed in action.

I've often wondered why my grandmother came to a new country, on her own and so far from her home, and I have a feeling that Lieut. Gold may be the answer. Whenever I asked about the cutting as a child, I was simply told that the man was a friend Grandma had known back in Scotland. That satisfied me then, but now there's no-one left to ask, and I wish I'd been more curious. When you're young, you just assume the people around you will always be there ...

Grandma's family were of the landed aristocracy and while there's nothing wrong with being a school teacher (as I well know), I can imagine my stern-faced great-grandmother (whose authority is positively palpable as she stares out from surviving family portraits) would have wanted a far grander match for her youngest daughter.

In my mind, I can hear strained voices, earnest discussions and stifled sobs, as my Grandma and her family struggled with the situation, trying to reach a compromise. And so it was that Grandma chose (or was forced ... I'll never know) to leave her homeland and her family, arriving in Sydney shortly before the outbreak of the war. There she established a small confectionery near the city markets. She sold sweets and chocolates imported from Scotland as well as local products, and by all accounts, her little shop was a success.

It wasn't long before she met my grandfather -- a tall, rangy man, ten years her senior, who worked in the fruit markets. And four years after she arrived here, she was married and had given birth to her only child -- my dad. Hardly the match my great-grandmother had hoped for!

But just think of all the sliding doors there ...

If my grandmother had been permitted to marry Henry, he may not have been where he was on that sad day ... and you wouldn't be reading this now!

She would have stayed in Scotland and would never have met my grandfather, so my father would not have been born. I (obviously) would not have existed and my children wouldn't be here either ... and their children (when they finally get around to having them) would never exist.

It was just a thought that snuck up on me while I was dusting, and I haven't been able to shake it since.

Ah yes! But there's no sneaking up on you, because we all know that snuck isn't really a proper word. It's listed in the Oxford as "a jocular or non-standard form" of sneaked.

Sneak is one of the regular verbs in English, and as such, it's conjugated in a regular way ...

It has a base form (infinitive): to sneak (The kitten loves to sneak up on its toy.)

A gerund form where -ing is added to the end of the verb to make it function as a noun: sneaking (Sneaking up on shadows is her favourite pastime.)

An -s form where -s is added to the end of the verb: sneaks (She sneaks around the corner before she pounces.)

A past tense form where -ed is added to the end of the verb: sneaked (Last night, she sneaked up on the dog.)

A past participle form where -ed is added to the end of the verb: sneaked (She has sneaked up on the older cats as well.)

See? Not a snuck in sight!

This week's Little Something Extra has more information than you can poke a stick at about verbs!

And did you hear about the teacher who asked the little girl if she was going to the school dance. "No, I ain't going," was the reply.

The teacher corrected the child, "You must not say, 'I ain't going,' you must say, 'I am not going.'" And she added to impress the point, "I am not going. He is not going. We are not going. You are not going. They are not going. Now, dear, can you say all that?"

The little girl nodded and smiled brightly. "Sure!" she replied, "There ain't nobody going."

This week's quiz:

More evidence that English has a word for nearly everything!

acatamathesia, decanal, xerarch, cynosure, auscultation, otolith, dipleidoscope, kern, abacinate, taeniacide

1. located on south side of the choir in a church; pertaining to a dean or deanery

2. instrument for measuring moment when an object passes a meridian

3. listening to sounds within the body

4. to blind by putting red-hot copper basin near the eyes

5. inability to understand data presented to the senses

6. growing in dry places

7. calcium concretion in inside of vertebrate's ear to aid in equilibrium

8. killing of tapeworms

9. part of typeface letter that sticks out beyond its body

10. something that strongly attracts attention and admiration; something that provides guidance (as Polaris guides mariners)

Her mother made her a neurotic.

Great! If I buy her the wool, will she make me one, too?

Map of the World

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Last week's quiz:

anticyclone, foehn, supercell, isobars, katabatic, advection, geostrophic, cyclone, front, relative humidity

1. wind that is steady, horizontal, and flowing parallel to straight isobars - GEOSTROPHIC

2. atmospheric circulations that rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere, and anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere; areas of lower pressure and generally associated with stronger winds, unsettled conditions, cloudiness and rainfall - CYCLONE

3. boundary between air masses having different characteristics - FRONT

4. the ratio of the amount of moisture actually in the air to the maximum amount of moisture which the air could hold at the same temperature; is normally expressed as a percentage - RELATIVE HUMIDITY ( At saturation, the relative humidity will be very close to 100%. The air can hold more moisture at higher temperatures, hence the relative humidity alone does not give an absolute measure of moisture content.)

5. atmospheric circulations that rotate anti-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere; these are areas of higher pressure and are generally associated with lighter winds and fine and settled conditions - ANTICYCLONE

6. persistent, single, intense updraught and downdraught coexisting in a thunderstorm - SUPERCELL

7. wind warmed and dried by descent, in general on the lee side of a mountain - FOEHN (The word sounds like "fern." The lee side is the side away from the direction the wind is blowing from.)

8. sideways movement of air in the lower atmosphere due to the differences in air pressure (commonly called wind); process of transfer of air mass properties by the velocity field of the atmosphere - ADVECTION

9. lines on weather maps joining places which have the same air pressure - ISOBARS

10. downslope wind caused by greater air density on the slope than at some distance, horizontally from it; associated with surface cooling of the slope - KATABATIC (I've rabbited on about these winds before ... I just love the sound of the word, don't you? It conjures up all sorts of dramatic images of the Antarctic!)

Don't you know the Queen's English?

Yes, I've heard she is.

A Little Something Extra

Conjugation of regular verbs here

All about English verbs here

Oxymoron of the week: simple grammar

Word of the week: Farouche (adj) marked by shyness and lack of polish; sullenly unsociable or shy; wild

This very descriptive word comes to us from the Old French faroche, from Late Latin forāsticus, 'belonging outside'  from the Latin forās, 'out of doors.'

Here's a Latin phrase you can start practising for Valentine's Day ...

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, deinde mille altera, deinde centum

[DAH MEE BAH-see-ah MEE-lay, DAY-een-day KAYN-toom, DAY-een-day MEE-lay ahl-TAY-rah,DAY-een-day KAYN-toom]

(Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred)

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)? Click here for these and more: http://www.cafepress.com/write101 

Recommend this page to other writers by clicking the Recommend it! button below, then see what pages others are recommending here.

Kind regards,

Jennifer

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