words

Linguistic Pet Hates

Item 1 of “a lot”, judging by most of the written English I see.

Let’s forget the much over-discussed greengrocers’ apostrophe and look at a few of my bêtes noir of grammar and vocabulary.

of. Very few if any past participles in English take “of”. So not “bored of” but “bored with”. Not “sensitive of” but “sensitive to”. And especially not “off of”, just “off”!

Chef’s “off”. Why do chefs have to “do off” everything. “I’m just going to fry off these onions”! Argghhh! None of the verbs you guys use should have “off” added. At best it is affectation, at worst slovenliness. Just “fry” will do!

Decimate. Unless you really do mean a reduction by exactly 1 in 10 it is incorrect.

Different to. No. Something is “different from” something else. But it is “similar to” another. Likewise things are “compared with” each other not “compared to”.

My school teachers also always used to deride the old exam favourite “compare and contrast” as being tautology: “compare” technically includes both similarities and differences, so “contrast” is unnecessary.

Impact on. Things do not “impact on” each other. They may “impact”, “collide”, “interact” or “impinge”, none of which need “on”.

Nude and Naked. The OED gives these as cognates, at least as far as human form is concerned, although I discern some variation. Used alone they are absolutes: both mean undressed; totally undressed; not wearing a bikini, or socks, or a hat. But gradations of nakedness (but not, I discern, nudity) can be indicated by the use of “almost”, “nearly”, “not quite” etc. Naked may also mean devoid of hair (where hair would generally be expected). Naked is much more readily and correctly applied to plants, animals, land, swords etc. etc.

Less and Fewer. The rule here is simple. Less of a quantity. Fewer of number. So we would get “less milk from fewer cows” and not any other variant.

OK, so language is a living thing and subject to change. But one had to have some standards, you know!

photography

Gallery : Hands

1 Comment

OK, so here’s another regular. Tara’s Gallery this week is called Hands. Here’s my contribution:

Fumeuse
Click the image of larger views on Flickr

This was taken in June 2004 (when I was still experimenting with a digital camera) sitting outside the Royal Standard pub on Lyme Regis beach-front. This beauty was at the next table; I just casually put my camera down on our table, set at widest-angle zoom and pointing the right way, and “accidentally” clicked the shutter a couple of times. I’ve no idea whether she had seen what I was doing, or whether she really was in a dream of her own, but I remain surprised at how well it came out!

quotes

Quotes

Another ragbag selection of quotes which amused or interested me over the last week or so …

Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.
[Clive James]

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
[Philip K Dick]

The entrée wasn’t tender enough to be a paving stone and the gravy couldn’t have been primordial soup because morphogenesis was already taking place.
[Clive James]

No, you can’t deny women their basic rights and pretend it’s about your ‘religious freedom’. If you don’t like birth control, don’t use it. Religious freedom doesn’t mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.
[Barak Obama]

[S]ome insect penises come equipped with hooks that enable the ensconced male to grab a previous suitor’s sperm packet and remove it from the female. I suggest that these hooks be called cuckholders.
[Steve Mirsky; Scientific American, July 2012]

No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow – and quite rightly – to take every advantage which is open to it under the taxing statutes for the purpose of depleting the taxpayer’s pocket. And the taxpayer is, in like manner, entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Revenue.
[Lord Clyde in Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services & Ritchie v Commissioners of the Inland Revenue (1929) 14 TC 754]

For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
[Winston Churchill]

Sunday went as Sunday’s should, soporifically and full bellied into the evening.
[Katy Wheatley, http://katyboo1.wordpress.com]

You see, stand here long enough and all life will pass before you.

quotes

Hamlet of the Day

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber’d thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ‘Well, well, we know,’ or ‘We could, an if we would,’
Or ‘If we list to speak,’ or ‘There be, an if they might,’
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me: this not to do.

[Hamlet, Act 1, scene 5]

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 32

Experiment, week 32. Back on track this week with an on time report, although it will doubtless be coloured by the fact that I didn’t start feeling really OK again until Wednesday. So here’s the week’s selection of five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful.

  1. Japanese Ceramics. Quite by chance the other week I came across a guy called Mark Smalley who makes ceramics in the Japanese style — very much after the tradition of Bernard Leech and his grandson John Leech, the latter of whose pottery we love and use almost daily. Mark showed a photo (below) of a pot he’d made; it is a yunomi, a Japanese tea cup, but the type used for everyday rather than the formal tea ceremony. It intrigued me, especially when I saw that it was carved. Yes, carved. Apparently this is done by making the pot, putting it aside to dry, then carving it before glazing and firing. Luckily for me Mark put the pot on this Folksy site and I snapped it up as an unbirthday present for Noreen, knowing she likes both green and this style of ceramic. It is only about 3-4″ high and as delightful as it looks!


    Photo by Mark Smalley

  2. Nutty Seedy Bread. One of the great things about having a bread machine is that you can have an almost endless variety of loaves, at will, for no extra effort and at half the price you’d pay for something inferior in the shops. Noreen is master of the bread machine and a bread she does once or twice week is laden with pinenuts and sunflower seeds. If the nuts weren’t so expensive we would doubtless eat this all the time!
  3. Broad Beans. Twice in the last week we’ve had broad beans; fresh broad beans. Firstly the other night in a chicken risotto and tonight in salad. Small tender and full of flavour — the best way to eat any vegetable.
  4. Orchids. Oh no! More orchids! (But not more orchid photos — yet!) I’ve decided that I shall only buy Phalaenopis orchids (they’re the easy ones you most commonly see) if they are really unusual colours that I don’t already have and which I like. So this week I bought three on our weekly trip to Waitrose. A miniature one in white and magenta, a large spotted one (in beige-y yellow with deep magenta spots) and a Chartreuse yellow one. And, oh dear, I’ve now run out of windowsill space!
  5. Saturday Dinner. I must say yesterday’s evening meal was rather good. A week or two back Noreen bought a piece of lamb leg, opened out into a really thick steak. We didn’t need it immediately so it was frozen. We thawed it and I cooked it for last night. Pan braised with some onion, garlic and wine; and served with English asparagus, samphire and steamed new potatoes. It was a lovely piece of lamb and I have to say I’ve paid a lot more for much worse in restaurants. Mmmmm…
medical, science, thoughts

Sleeping with Your Partner

Just a quick follow up to my post of the other day about the keys to a robust relationship and especially the one about sharing a bed.

Quite serendipitously the same day I happened across a reference to an article in The Wall Street Journal reporting on research which shows that there really are benefits to sharing a bed. For instance:

While the science is in the early stages, one hypothesis suggests that by promoting feelings of safety and security, shared sleep in healthy relationships may lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. Sharing a bed may also reduce cytokines, involved in inflammation, and boost oxytocin, the so-called love hormone that is known to ease anxiety and is produced in the same part of the brain responsible for the sleep-wake cycle. So even though sharing a bed may make people move more, “the psychological benefits we get having closeness at night trump the objective costs of sleeping with a partner”.

It’s nice to have some scientific support for my thoughts. ☺

photography

Buggered Britain 11

Another in my occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.

Buggered Britain 11

This delight is in Kingly Street, London, W1 at the back of the shops in iconic Regent Street. I have no clue if it is used or if so what for. Is it some night-dive? Or the goods entrance to one of the Regent Street Shops (unlikely; the road is pedestrianised)? Or a staff entrance? Why the padded doors, and fancy gates? Oh and note the tuft of grass on the top of the gatepost!
[Further research reveals that this is the Studio Valbonne nightclub. The state of the entrance is a fairly good guide to the reviews it gets.]

personal, ramblings

Things What I Want To Do

No not another of those lists of 100 impossible things you’re supposed to (want to) do before you die; there’s one of them on my website already. No, this is an actual, real list!

I don’t know how many years ago it was that I first made myself a list of things I wanted to do/achieve in this life, but it was well over 10 years ago although at that time I hadn’t formalised it. Interestingly it doesn’t seem to have changed a lot over the years although I do add odd things.

And I never called it “Things to do Before I Die” but “Sometime I’ll Do …” which somehow seemed less doom-laden and more aspirational.

I’ve achieved (✔) quite a few (though not yet 50%) and I know I’ve failed (✖) on a handful.

Out of interest I thought I would share my list. It probably says some highly significant and interesting things about me! So …

Sometime I’ll Do …

  • Lead a funeral celebration (not my own!) ✔
  • Celebrate my 80th birthday in good health
  • Celebrate my mother’s 100th birthday with her
  • Fly on Concorde ✖
  • Fly on flight-deck of a commercial airliner
  • Have acupuncture
  • Be honoured for something
  • Have hypnotherapy ✔
  • Get a piercing ✔
  • Get a tattoo
  • Go on London Eye ✔
  • Have a nudist holiday
  • Heal my father and his rift with his family ✖
  • Invest in penny shares (not that I need to; the value of what I do have is so low!)
  • Learn to dowse ✔
  • Learn MS Access
  • Learn Photoshop properly
  • Try yoga
  • Practice dowsing properly
  • Publish a book on Anthony Powell
  • Retire ✔
  • Retire in financial comfort ✖
  • Reunite with my Aunt & Uncle (my father’s siblings) ✔
  • Travel on Eurostar ✔

  • Travel across Europe on the Orient Express
  • Try zazen
  • Visit Bluebell Railway
  • Visit Iceland
  • Visit Japan
  • Visit Norway
  • Visit Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway ✔
  • Visit Scilly Isles
  • Visit Sweden
  • Visit USA ✔
  • Visit West Somerset Railway
  • Visit the London Aquarium ✔
  • Win £1M+ on Lottery (or equivalent)
  • Write a book ✔
  • Do past life regression under hypnotherapy
  • Prove my family history back to Tudor times and find an armigerous ancestor

Some things are dependent on others: like there is no way I’ll be able to afford the Orient Express unless I win the Lottery first. And I won’t visit Iceland, Norway or Japan until they change their stance on whaling. Some of the things are unlikely to ever happen and some are out of my control. But one can dream, and I guess at least some part of this is just about dreams!

Dare you share your list?

words

Word : Armigerous

Well as we all like words so much here’s another nice one following along hot on the heels of the last …

Armigerous

Entitled to bear heraldic arms.

As de Quincy writes in 1858: “They belonged to the armigerous part of the population, and were entitled to write themselves Esquire”.

For those interested the shield on the right is the arms of England, 1405-1603, consisting of France Moderne (Azure three fleur-de-lis Or) quartered with England (Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued azure). It is formally blazoned as: Quarterly, I and IV azure three fleur-de-lis Or; II and III gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued azure.

personal, ramblings, sexuality, thoughts

Keys to a Robust Relationship

I’ve been thinking, idly, as one does, for some time about what it is that makes any relationship really robust. Not just one that will last, but one that will last through almost everything and get stronger.

First of all we need to be clear about what I mean by “relationship”. In this instance I am talking of the long-term, bonded, probably sexual, live together partnership between two (or more) people — and regardless of the mix of genders of the partners.

So I’ve come up with …

5 Keys to a Robust Relationship

1. Multi-level
It seems to me, as outlined on my website, that the best relationships operate at multiple levels with the partners dropping in and out of different roles at different times. Sometimes it will be lover-lover, sometimes parent-child (for instance when one partner is ill, or in fun), sometimes there will be child-child playtime. And so on.

Many things seem to spring from this. The more levels there are present the stronger the relationship is likely to be, although not all levels may be there all the time. Occasionally a level will go missing, and that may be when things feel out of kilter. That’s fine as long as it returns after a while. And where a relationship is in trouble it is often because too many of the levels are absent for too long. Having a relationship which works only as lover-lover may be good for short-term lust but is unlikely to work long-term.

2. On-going Intimate Communication
There’s an old adage I came across in business: Communicate, communicate, communicate. I wish more people would take it to heart, in business and in personal life.

Ongoing intimate communication between partners is essential for a healthy relationship. And by intimate I don’t mean just about sex (though that is a highly important element) but communication about anything which is given in an open, honest, frank, straightforward and non-judgemental way — and is properly listened to, and considered, by the receiving partner. This builds respect and trust between the partners. Trust that the important things are being shared; trust that each partner can accept the other as they are; trust that any problem, great or small, can be discussed and worked through. Respect for the other person’s opinion and values, even if you don’t agree with them.

3. Mutual Trust and Respect
Trust and respect have to be built, preferably early on in the relationship. As we’ve seen above, communication is one key aspect of this. Openness and honesty are essential. It almost boils down to “do what you say and say what you do”. Certainly keep your commitments (unless there is really good reason you can’t in which case explain, honestly, as soon as possible beforehand why you can’t).

Respect the other person’s opinions and values, even if you yourself are unable to agree with them. We each hold our opinions and values for a reason (which we may not know) so they have an importance to us. So don’t attack them or ridicule them. Discuss them by all means, in a civilised way, but accept that you may not come to mutual agreement, just mutual understanding of each others’ views.

As that builds, early in the relationship, it should become apparent that you could trust your partner with your last shirt or your best mate. If you can’t maybe you shouldn’t be in the relationship?

4. Shared Bed
In my view sharing a bed is an equally key element of a relationship. You are going to spend 30%+ of your time in there so make sure it is a comfortable bed, which is big enough and soft (or hard) enough.

Physical intimacy is important. That doesn’t mean it has to be sexual. A lot of the time it will not be sexual. Just the proximity of your partner should be something you cherish, something comforting. However miserable or depressed you feel, or however much you are out of sorts with each other, it is hard to fall asleep together without making up.

Even after many years together what better than to fall asleep embracing, to wake in the middle of the night to stroke your (sleeping) partner’s body, to wake in the morning and cuddle into consciousness?

And if you can sleep in the nude, well it gets even better. Get a warm(-enough) duvet so you don’t need pyjamas, knickers or socks and enjoy the delight of lying skin-to-skin.

5. Shared Meals
To me shared meals are also an important factor. If you are both working they may be the only time you get to sit and talk together, or as a family. For us evening meal is sacrosanct time. Time when we eat together, at the dining table, without the TV, book or computer game. Time to enjoy food and to talk. When we were both working it was often the only hour of the day when we could guarantee we were together, not pre-occupied and awake enough to be sentient. Thus it becomes important communication time and important decision-making time — we often sit for some while after finishing eating just talking, about whatever the subject at hand is: do we need to take the cat to the vet; shall I go to that conference next month; should we buy a new freezer; shall we have another bottle of wine.

Having said that, it is important to remember that meals are primarily about food, and enjoying food. What better way than to do this together, with a bottle of wine. And we often discuss food while we eat: ideas for recipes, what do we fancy eating at the weekend, does the wine rack need restocking. Most importantly of all, being together and enjoying food.

So there we have it. Five keys to a robust relationship, which boil down to communication, trust & respect and enjoyment.

Every relationship still has to be continually worked at. And each relationship will be different; working in its own peculiar way. Nonetheless I feel these principles will be the essence of any worthwhile, long-term successful relationship.

They certainly seem to be working for us!