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Meanings change
The old English book (published 1898) that I discovered recently has a chapter listing 'Words that have greatly changed in meaning'. Here is a selection.
Animosity: high spirits
Awkward: going the wrong way
Blackguard: the lowest of kitchen servants, who had to look after the spits, pots, and pans, etc
Brave: showy, splendid
Clumsy: stiff with cold
Cunning: able or skilled
Danger: jurisdiction, legal power over
Disaster: an unfavourable star
Essay: an attempt
Explode: to drive out by clapping of the hands
Gazette: a magpie
Generous: high-born
Handsome: clever with the hands
Idiot: a private person
Insolent: unusual
Manure: to work with the hand
Nice: too scrupulous or fastidious
Palliate: to throw a cloak over
Polite: polished
Prevent: to go before
Punctual: attending to small points of detail
Quaint: skilful
Reduce: to lead back
Sad: earnest
Silly: blessed
Starve: to die
Thought: deep sorrow, anxiety
Uncouth: unknown
Unkind: unnatural
The saying 'to be on first name terms with someone' to imply familiarity with the person is losing its meaning now that the use of first names has become almost the norm.
Thought for today
One of the difficulties in the language is that all our words from loose using have lost their edge.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)
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2.7.07 21:03
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A tale of woe
There was a tale of woe in The Times 2 today. (in Life and Style, entitled 'Who Cares?') It was written by a woman who suddenly had to care for her elderly parents. It should be compulsory reading for all adults (it'll be on The Times' website); they should ask themselves: 'Why could this not happen to me?'
The elderly couple lived together, and coped. The family, described as close, visited often. The husband fell and ended up in hospital, and from then on the trouble started. Read the article.
I think old age is regarded in the same way that obesity was about ten years ago. It doesn't matter; it isn't a problem; there's nothing wrong with being fat/old; fat people are perfectly healthy. They may be now but they might not be later; they are storing up trouble for themselves. Old folk may be OK now, they may be healthy and independent but they won't necessarily stay that way. (Better a quick death than a slow death. Read the article.) Old age is not something to be ignored like obesity was years ago. There may be problems ahead. The writer and her family sound never to have considered the future and found out the hard way.
As people live longer, more and more families will be affected in the way the writer describes. There is no easy answer but realising there could be a problem is a start.
Thought for today
We think as we do, mainly because other people think so.
Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912
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3.7.07 19:42
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Make the most of life while you can
The article in yesterday's Times has provoked many responses. Most of them were from people who had similar experiences. I wouldn't be surprised if many people who describe their family as close have little idea about their parents' finances, about how they run their household or how dependent one is on the other. The author of the article said that she didn't know her father was an alcoholic or that her mother had dementia. If they were a close family, why was she unaware of this?
I met with some friends of mine recently and we reminisced about our student days. One person, a GP, said that he always remembered a registrar in one hospital (33 years ago). A patient in his eighties had a cardiac arrest and the arrest team was summoned. My GP friend, then a junior doctor, was one of the team. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was in progress when the registrar arrived and asked about the patient. He hit the roof, said my friend. Eighty-seven year olds don't have cardiac arrests, he said, they die.
Old age had become a medical condition; it has remained so.
Quote for today
He experienced the relief which it always is to an undecided man, and generally is at first to any one who has been paltering with duty, when circumstances decide for him.
Elizabeth Gaskell, Sylvia's Lovers, 1863
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4.7.07 20:51
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Mistaken identity
The second row of seeds I planted next to my radishes sprouted and developed healthy leaves. I checked them occasionally to see when the bases swelled and turned red; radishes, like most vegetables, are tastier eaten young. Today the bases looked just the same--there was no swelling. I nibbled a leaf; it tasted strongly of mustard. That was why no radishes had developed--the seeds were mustard seeds. I hadn't labelled the row because I would remember what I had sowed. Obviously not.
There is an item in the latest Which? magazine about some makes of Vauxhall cars which seem to have faulty handbrakes. The owner of one car parked it on her drive which had a steep slope; fifteen minutes later the handbrake released itself, the car ran down the slope, crashed into a neighbour's car and wrote it off. It puzzles me why the woman didn't leave the car in gear if the slope was so steep.
Thought for today
A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own.
Thomas Mann
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5.7.07 20:32
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A keen eye for a maggot
Picked peas this afternoon and then shelled them. About one in five pods contained a maggot or two, hence the title of this entry. The peas are tasty. In spite of the maggots, I think I shall plant peas again next year and mangetouts. The mangetouts were free from maggots, least none that I noticed. I expect I've eaten a few maggots in the last month.
My potatoes are delicious. I do like spuds. There is still time to plant another lot. Potatoes are easy to grow and, in my experience, don't get attacked by slugs, snails, birds, maggots or insects. The soil in my garden drains well so the heavy rain hasn't rotted the crop.
Thought for today
An wrong done to one who stands on the pinnacle of the people's favour is resented by each individual as a personal injury.
Elizabeth Gaskell, Sylvia's Lovers, 1863
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6.7.07 20:30
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A keen eye for an earwig
Earwigs are another kind of pest encountered when growing vegetables. They don't eat much, nothing more than the occasional nibble, but they are off-putting either dead (when cooked) or alive. I picked the rest of my peas today and spotted an earwig crawling, running more like, on the shoulder of my T shirt. Where would it have gone when it reached the neck of the T shirt? Down the inside? Eeech.
I now have three basins full of pods and a blister on my right thumb from cutting up the plants for the compost heap. Tomorrow I shall be shelling peas, for hours.
A programme about the Hampton Court Flower Show replaced Gardeners' World on BBC2 last week. I am starting to be irritated by the background music that has become obligatory during such programmes. When we are shown a rose, there is rose music; when shown an agapanthus, there is agapanthus music. What's wrong with silence? Either the producers can't cope with silence, or they think the audience can't. They treat silence like my parents treated space—something to be filled.
Quote for today
He decided that where the dead were involved there was always an element of condescension: the deceased had been put in his or her place, namely the grave, and however lavish the tributes with which this was accompanied there was no altering the fact that the situation of the living was altogether superior.
Alan Bennett, The Laying on of Hands, 2001
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8.7.07 20:40
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Worth the effort
Spent today digging; the garden looks better for it. The peas and mangetouts are gone; the pods are picked and the spent plants chopped up in the compost bin. The ground is freshly dug; four courgette plants replace the peas. I had a mixture of homegrown vegetables for lunch--spuds, peas, spinach and beetroot tops. All were delicious. While I waited for them to cook,
I ate a few raw broad beans and french beans; the latter were the first of the season. I've had little success with growing lettuces; perhaps I give them the wrong conditions. My lettuces become spindly and even ones I bought end up like that. However, I shall persevere. Now I am trying pak choi and so far have twelve sturdy-looking plants.
Growing vegetables is time consuming but well worth the effort. I am already planning next year's crop.
Thought for today
I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.
George S Patton, former US General
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9.7.07 20:53
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