of receiving the generosity we give them.
[Ethan Nichtern]
Quote: Generosity
of receiving the generosity we give them.
[Ethan Nichtern]
of receiving the generosity we give them.
[Ethan Nichtern]
Strange Conversations
About 30 years ago, the guy I shared an office with commented about “the strange conversations you people have over the dinner table”. This was, as I recall, occasioned by my mentioning that the previous evening Noreen and I had been ruminating upon the origins, and reasons for, the names animals were given in medieval times. You know: Reynard the Fox, Tib the Cat, Broc the Badger, and so forth.
[Although it has to be said that Jim and I also had some curious conversations in the office; as you do when you are working in IT, you have a doctorate in Chemistry and your office-mate has a doctorate in medieval French, from a French university.]
And indeed Noreen and I do discuss some odd things over dinner. Last evening we wondered about the origin of the word kiosk.
Noreen suspected initially that it might be Arabic. I suggested possibly Hindi; and later wondered about Inuit.
And of course Noreen turns out to be right. Kiosk is indeed derived ultimately from the Persian. According to the OED:
From the French kiosque and Italian chiosco; after the Turkish kiūshk a pavilion; which is from the Persian kūskh, a palace or portico.
Secondarily to this the OED quotes as one of its sources (not the earliest, that’s 1625):
1 April 1717, Lady MW Montagu letter to Mrs Thistlethwayte: “In the public gardens there are public chiosks, where people go and drink their coffee, sherbet, etc.”
I remark on this because the only other time I have come across Thistlethwaite as a name was Prof. Frank Thistlethwaite, Vice-Chancellor of UEA when I was a graduate student there in the early 70s.
But it isn’t just us. A few weeks ago when we met up with our friend Katy (plus under-age hangers on) for lunch the conversation fell to wondering about the origin of hunkey-dorey, meaning OK, good or even excellent. None of us knew, or even wanted to hazard a guess.
But trawling the intertubes it turns out that there is no agreed origin of the expression. The earliest reference seems to be in the US Civil War period collection of songs George Christy’s Essence of Old Kentucky of 1862. Not that this tells us the origin or reason; just when it is first recorded.
Looking further Word Detective turns up another, but suspiciously spurious, possible origin:
Probably the most oft-heard story about “hunky-dory” holds that there was, in the 19th century, a street in Yokohama, Japan, called “Honcho-dori.” It is said that Honcho-dori was the Times Square of Yokohama, and thus a favourite hangout of US sailors on shore leave. So popular did this street become among sailors, it is said, that “Honcho-dori” entered naval slang as “hunky-dory,” a synonym for “Easy Street” or a state of well-being and comfort.
Now, there actually is a “Honcho-dori” in Yokohama. (In fact, there’s one in many Japanese cities, because “Honcho-dori” translates roughly as “Main Street”.) But there are two problems with this story. One is that there is no direct evidence of any connection between the first appearance of “hunky-dory” around 1866 and US sailors in Japan or naval slang in general.
Problem number two is that a connection with “Honcho-dori” is somewhat unnecessary. English already had the archaic American slang word “hunk,” meaning “safe”, from the Dutch word “honk”, meaning goal or home in a game. To achieve “hunk” or “hunky” in a child’s game was to make it “home” and win the game. So “hunky” already meant OK.
But where the dory or dorey came from is, it seems, anyone’s guess. But then maybe it’s just a rhyming duplication like okey-dokey.
Yeah, the strange conversations you people have over dinner!
Something for the Weekend
Manspreading
Bear with me because this is in large part me thinking aloud. And no, I’m not being a male chauvinist dickhead; I’m genuinely trying to understand a (modern?) phenomenon.
Manspreading — when a man sits with his legs wide apart on public transport encroaching on other seats — has recently been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. So this seems a suitable point for some thoughts on the subject, which actually goes wider than public transport.
Men are always being castigated for sitting with their knees apart, taking up too much room and (supposedly) showing off their jewels — or they would be showing them off if they weren’t clad in OMG jeans. I agree this posture is ungainly and unattractive; nevertheless I’m as guilty as the next bloke.
I have a four-pronged theory as to why this is, and why men don’t — indeed can’t, comfortably — sit with their knees together as women (mostly) do. This is at least in part based on personal experience and observation.
- Yes, the dangly bits get in the way. This doesn’t help.
- And the dangly bits get in the way even more with our modern tight underwear and trousers, where there isn’t the jiggle room to adjust their position, whether manually or automatically.
- We’re all fatter than we were, and the fatter the thighs (and remember men are also generally larger than women) the harder to get the knees together. Our forebears may have been fitter and had better muscles, but they were not generally as fat as we are, hence they were more able to sit decorously — not that they always did, as evidenced below!
- All this is exacerbated by men’s pelvic anatomy. Women’s hips are placed further apart than men’s (for good child producing reasons), which means men are already having their thighs squash their dangly bits. But having the hips closer together also means it is harder to comfortably get those knees together — the thighs are angled outwards more (presumably to provide better stability) so getting the knees together puts significant additional strain on the muscles of the hips and across the lower back. Try it guys, and see how it stresses your lower back.
You can see how this works in this photo …
Look at the angles of this couple’s thighs and the closeness of the knees. See how it is anatomically harder for the man to get his knees together. Just think about the tension in the muscles.
So now let the sensible debate begin, and hopefully we’ll have some scientists prove me wrong (or even right).
Oddity of the Week: Sheep Racing
In early August this year crowds flocked to the Dumfriesshire town of Moffat to cheer and place bets on their favourite sheep during the fourth annual Moffat High Street sheep race.
Baa, ewe are ‘aving a giraffe, aren’t ewe?
No, they really do race sheep, complete with knitted jockeys and a boy shepherd. What’s more, the race is over hurdles. See here …
There are lots more pictures in the Guardian report.
Weekly Photograph
I’ve just realised that I have neglected my duty to post this week’s photograph — basically because I spent most of Monday engrossed in family history and discovering that one of my gg-grandfathers was tried in 1864 for fraud against his employer, the South Eastern Railway. I may write more about this in due course as he then seems to have disappeared from the radar and we’re still searching for the wreckage.
Anyway to this week’s photograph, a very old one from the archives, of the reflections in the Manchester office block where I was running a project.
Exchange Quay
Manchester; March 2004
Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Your Interesting Links
So here we are again with another round of links to interesting items you might have missed the first time around. Again not too much heavy science but a lot of oddities …
Cats vs Dogs. Who wins? Well from an evolutionary perspective scientists have concluded that cats are better.
Since when has a Goth Chicken been a thing? Quite a while apparently as it is a recognised breed with black feathers, black meat and even a black heart. And they are highly prized.
We all know we eat too much animal protein, so it’s no surprise that the trend for replacing red meat with chicken isn’t actually helping.
George Monbiot considers evidence that obesity is an incurable disease and asks why then governments are intent on punishing sufferers.
So what is it like if you lose your sense of smell?
There are lots of medical screening tests available but which are really useful and what are the drawbacks?
Michael Ignatieff looks at the ongoing human impact of the Fukushima accident and subsequent clean-up.
So which shall be the master: the Meridian or GPS? It seems they don’t agree where the Greenwich Meridian is by a small matter of 102 metres. which is fine, apparently.
Galileo looked at a pendulum and thus begat GPS. Or how seemingly trivial observations and inventions can have long-lasting and profound effects centuries later.
And while we’re on inventions, a creative man has built a machine to feed his cat — but only when the cat hunts and finds a hidden ball and puts it in a slot machine!
Mention of Galileo makes us turn to history, but let’s start even further back in time … An English academic working in America has been looking hard at the walls of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber and thinks he’s spotted the bricked up entrance to Queen Nefertiti’s tomb.
Now here’s an equally puzzling conundrum. Was Shakespeare stoned when he wrote his plays? Well maybe, because pipe remains found in Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon garden have been analysed and found to contain not just tobacco but also cocaine and cannabis.
Struan Bates at www.EnglishCivilWar.org takes a further look at London’s York House Water Gate, this time as represented by various artists.
Has anyone got a couple of million to spare? If so, Dungeness is up for sale — yes, that large expanse of shingle on the Kent coast. And as it’s a very environmentally sensitive area it needs a suitable owner. Now if I can just win the lottery …
After which it is all downhill (or do I mean down the beach?) …
Guys … Do you want to increase your fertility? If so, take a tip from the Scots and wear a kilt!
Don’t want to wear a kilt? OK, so nudism is another option. Here are two items where young ladies look at the experience of social nudity: the first talks of the challenges of being a lifelong nudist and the second tackles nudity in the interests of research.
Meanwhile Amnesty International has found some sense and now backs the worldwide decriminalisation of prostitution. Is it too much to hope the politicians might now listen? Yes, I thought so.
And finally some words from a working, legal (albeit American) prostitute on the misconceptions people have about the job she has chosen for herself.
That’s all. More anon.
Something for the Weekend
Oddity of the Week: Victorian Slang
Just like every other age the Victorians had a wide variety of slang, much of which has not survived. For example:
Bang up to the Elephant
This phrase originated in London in 1882, and means “perfect, complete, unapproachable”.
Bags o’ Mystery
An 1850 term for sausages, “because no man but the maker knows what is in them”. The ‘bag’ refers to the skin in which the chopped meat is contained.
Mutton Shunter
This 1883 term for a policeman is so much better than “pig”.
Find more at 56 Victorian Slang Terms That We Should Definitely Bring Back.
Book Review: Bare Reality
Laura Dodsworth
Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories
Pinter & Martin; 2015
This is a fascinating book in which 100 women share un-photoshopped photographs of their breasts alongside honest, courageous, powerful and sometimes humorous stories about their breasts and their effect on their lives. The women come from all walks of life: from a Buddhist nun to a burlesque dancer; ages ranging from 19 to 101; everything from a 32AAA to a 36K bust; entirely natural through surgically enhanced and surgically reduced to bilateral radical mastectomy.
The cover blurb suggests the book will make you reconsider how you think and feel about your own body as well as those of the women in your life. And yes, it may for those who have not thought about these things before. Has it for me? I don’t think so, but the jury is still out. But these women’s perspectives and experiences are certainly revealing, intimate and at times moving.
The stories recounted cover the whole range:
- I hate my breasts — I love my breasts
- I wish they were bigger — I wish they were smaller
- They’re totally non-sensitive — they’re so sensitive it’s painful
- They don’t do anything sexually — they’re my most erogenous feature
- Breastfeeding is so gross — I love breastfeeding
- Breastfeeding is what they’re for — sex is what they’re for
- I love bras — bras are the work of the Devil
- I hated them, so a had them enhanced; now they’re horrible and I hate them more
- I could never have them enlarged/reduced — can’t understand why everyone doesn’t have a boob job
- This is the first time I’ve ever shown them to anyone — I’m nude all the time
- How is it men never learn what to do with our breasts but my girlfriend just knows?
- And of course, why are (most) men so fixated on breasts?
Probably everyone would agree there are a small number of real stunners (though we probably wouldn’t agree which ones) and there are an even smaller number of horrors (like one spectacularly bad boob job); but the vast majority are just breasts — normal breasts — just like you’d see on any topless beach; nothing to get hung up about.
Which is all very much as one might expect so I can’t say I was struck by anything at all surprising. Sad; pathetic; moving; joyous. Yes all of those. But no moment of “OMG how did I not know/suspect that?!”. And in a way I found that disappointing. I had expected there would be something profound about women and their breasts that had passed me by, but if so it isn’t revealed here.
That having been said I did find the book both interesting and compulsive reading. Whether you are male or female, if you want an insight into how women view their breasts this is a must read. I would commend the book to everyone, but especially to teenagers — of both genders, but boys especially — as an essential part of learning, understanding, cherishing and being completely comfortable with your, and everyone else’s, body. To which end we could now do with the equivalent books of male and female genitalia.
Oh, and do not expect the book to be titillating. It isn’t.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆