That's talent

When you think of talented people, what sort of people and talents spring to mind?

Albrecht Durer's "magic" square? (See this week's Little Something Extra for this amazing square ... it goes to show that even hundreds of years ago, some people had wa-a-a-y too much spare time!)

Perhaps your idea of talent is more along the lines of Opera singers Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti?

Maybe it's ballet dancers ... Sir Robert Helpmann, Anna Pavlova and Rudolph Nureyev.

All of these people -- and thousands of others like them -- have perfected their skills and produced work that makes us all sigh with contentment and gasp in admiration, with just a smidge of envy added for a bit of spice.

It's defined as "a special natural ability or aptitude; a capacity for achievement or success; ability," and it comes from an ancient Greek word talanton meaning 'a unit of money or weight.'

So, a talent should, by definition and origin, be something of value, which brings us scratching our heads and furrowing our brows to a recent entrant on one of those ubiquitous "talent shows" ... and I hasten to point out that I only ever saw this on the promos for the show, because there's not enough money in the world to make me watch one of these television programs.

This man is a mind-reader. (I know ... why do you even ask ...) But his trick was to don a blindfold (and we all know how effective they are), then hand a nail-gun to his hapless assistant. This unfortunate individual then had to point the nail-gun to the idiot's (sorry ... contestant's) stomach and fire.

Our hero claimed it was a way for him to combine his "old job as a carpenter" with his new talent for mind-reading, and in something that would have to be a contender for the under-statement of the century he finishes, "There's a lot of a risk for me as a person."

It was billed as a "game" of Russian Roulette, with four nail guns being prepared, but only one of the four actually loaded with nails. As the disembodied head of the contestant speaks, we see the obligatory (but, one would hope, unnecessary) disclaimer scroll across the screen "This act is performed by a trained professional. Do not attempt this at home." (Remember we chatted about disclaimers recently.)

If you had a couple of hours to spare after a spot of carpentry, would your first thought be to see if you could guess which nail-gun was loaded as you pressed it to your belly and pulled the trigger?

And I'm sure your average bloke would much prefer a nice cold beer at the end of a hard day's work.

You'd have to have travelled a long way in life to find someone else with such a "talent," don't you think?

And I know some of you are shifting uncomfortably in your seats, anxious to point out that I've misspelt a word and that it should be "traveled."

Well, actually, no, it shouldn't, and it's all to do with giving readers visual clues about how to pronounce words. Here's when and why you double the consonant:

We double the final consonant of a word before we add -ed, -er, -est, -ing, -able and -y to show that the vowel has a short sound.

But how do you know when to double the consonant and when not to? There are a number of things to consider.

1. Firstly, we double a consonant if it comes at the end of a word [and follows a short vowel].

Slop - slopped - slopping BUT slope - sloped - sloping [The first vowel is short, the second is long]

2. Secondly, we double a consonant if a word ends in one vowel followed by one consonant [if it's a short vowel].

Dig - digging
Shut - shutting

BUT

Fool - fooled - fooling
Bend - bending

3. Thirdly, we need to consider words that end in one vowel followed by one consonant, but contain two syllables. We only double the consonant in these words if the last syllable is stressed:

Last syllable stressed

Deter - deterred - deterring
Unplug - unplugged - unplugging

Last syllable unstressed

Happen - happened - happening
Gather - gathered - gathering

Note: in two syllable words ending in one vowel followed by one "l", the "l" is doubled even if the last syllable is unstressed:

Travel - travelled - travelling

Fourthly, only some letters are doubled.

B - rob - robbed - robbing
D - bid - bidded - bidding
G - dig - digging
L - travel - travelled - travelling
M - swim - swimming
N - plan - planned - planning
P - shop - shopped - shopping
R - deter - deterred - deterring
T - bet - betted - betting (Source)

See? There's a reason for everything!

And here's a story that is completely unrelated to anything we've just been chatting about ...

Once a year, the collectors of antique tents in Germany get together for a rally. Last year, the organizers decided to hold it in Meinz.

Unfortunately, the local burghers took a dim view of so great an influx of tourists ruining their turf with tent pegs.

The citizens organised themselves so thoroughly that they even had an anthem: "Let Old and Quaint Tents Be Forgot and Never Brought to Meinz!"

And because we've been chatting about most unusual ways to express your talent this week, here are some unusual words ...