Feculent

Hello,

It was feculent weather on Saturday at Slieve Gullion Forest Park. We cajoled our short-legged Beaver Scouts uphill (children aged 6-8), settled for a picnic and instantly the heavens opened. We grabbed a few wet bites of pinics, enjoyed watching the local hunters training their gundogs with dummies on the hillside in a brief window of dry weather, and then sauntered back downhill. We waited, out of the rain but watching very happy ducks in their rain-lashed pond, for the Cubs and Scouts (on longer hikes) to join us for our transport home.

We thought we were wet, but we weren’t really. When the older scouts arrived, drenched to the skin through multiple layers of “waterproofs”, we understood what feculent really meant. Their off-road trail had turned to a slippery morass down which they had slithered.

So, feculent (pronounced fek-ull-ent), first defined in Dr. Johnson’s dictionary of English (a book I really must buy), means that something is foul, turbid, muddy, or containing the dregs of fecal matter. Delightful.

I’ll be spending my week washing the feculent remains of that hike from our gear and praying the weather isn’t similar at our overnight camp next weekend. I keep reminding the world that June is meant to be summertime in Ireland, but the world isn’t listening. It’s raining as I write this.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

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Windy Words

Hello,

Hurricane Irene grabbed all the weather headlines recently, but it was the tail-end of Hurricane Katia that caused trouble for me this week. She created 6-10 metre swells on the west coast of Ireland and the ferry to InishBofin for my writing weekend was cancelled (wisely) by the skipper. As a result I won’t be posting any idyllic island images today, sorry.

But the wind, which caused a fair bit of damage to my own garden on the east coast, got me thinking about windy words.

As a child I was delighted to discover that the inventor of the commonly used Beaufort Wind  Scale in 1805, was Irish-born like me, Sir Francis Beaufort. Many thanks to Wikipedia for the following details on how it works which I had forgotten despite learning the indicators as part of my geography studies aged 12. The modern version of the scale used in Ireland and Britain (with some additions for tropical cyclones on the China Sea area) is as follows  -

Zero – calm – smoke rises vertically

1 – light air – ripples without crests

2 – light breeze – leaves rustle

3 – gentle breeze – light flags extended

4 – moderate breeze – whitecaps on waves

5 -fresh breeze – small trees begin to sway

6 – strong breeze – umbrella use becomes difficult and empty rubbish bins (garbage cans) tip over – I love this description!

7 – high wind – effort needed to walk against the wind

8 – gale – cars veer on the road

9 – strong gale – large amounts of seaspray reduce visibility, some tree branches will break

10 – storm – trees broken or uprooted

11 – violent storm – widespread damage to trees and roof-tiles

12- hurricane – huge seas, totally white with waves and spray. Extensive damage to weaker structures like barns, mobile homes etc.

A sombre read, isn’t it? Reminds me of the power of the wind, and wave. The highest up the scale I’ve experienced personally is only 10 and I’m very glad of that. Yesterday, the end of Hurricane Katia, who had dropped to Atlantic storm level came through my village as a puny 7, but she still managed to wrench up a badly planted fruit tree and rip several fruit-laden branches from my tomato-patch.

 

Other windy words you might enjoy weaving into your weather-related small-talk this week include -

zephyr – a soft, gentle breeze

el Nino and la Nina – linked air pressure events in the Pacific which have massive influence on weather patterns globally. Explained here.

draught, gust, puff, squally, tempest, tornado, blustery

Chinook, Mistral, Monsoon, Sirocco and several other famous regional winds identified here.

 

My two final words relate to wind too. Do you know what they mean? Windbag and windjammer.

 

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

And may your umbrella always remain the right way out,

Grace

 

 

 

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Paraprosdokian (and Earth Hour)

My Earth Hour 2011 Lantern

Hello,

Now before I get onto the meaning to paraprosdokian, can you take a look at the image on the left? This is a lantern I created to show my support for Earth Hour 2011. You can create your own at Earth Hour Lantern and post it on your blog or facebook page. If you’re not aware of Earth Hour, it’s an annual event, taking place in more than 126 countries, where individuals, communities, and governments turn out the lights for one hour to raise awareness of climate change and the damage it is doing to our planet. This year’s Earth Hour will take place at 8.30pm on Saturday 26th March (GMT) and details of events near you can be found at Earth Hour. Last year many Dublin pubs held candlelight trad music sessions. I like that idea.

I’ve taken part for the last two years. It is wonderful to walk around the house, switching off the lights (and computer, television, etc), lighting the candles, and peering out to see if my neighbours have joined me in this simple protest. The added advantage is that it makes me realise how much energy we waste in our home, and gets me talking to my family, rather than just slumping in front of a flickering television.

Now, onto the words!

This week’s word is paraprosdokian which Wikipedia defines as “ A figure of speech (from Greek “παρα-”, meaning “beyond” and “προσδοκία”, meaning “expectation”) in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists.”

Paraprosdokian is pronounced para-proz-doke-ian (audio here) but it doesn’t exactly trip off my tongue. However my friend Marie kindly sent me a few examples of paraprosdokian sentences (source unknown)…

I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way.   So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
Light travels faster than sound.   This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.     (as a mother I fully agree!)
War does not determine who is right — only who is left.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism.  To steal from many is research.   (my friends in academia chortle over this one)

Here’s my own attempt – “Save the planet, drive to your recycling centre with your recyclables”.

Have a try yourself and stick it in a comment on this post. I’d love to see what my readers come up with.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and fooling with words,

Grace

p.s. for those of you with unpublished novels under the bed – consider the Pageturner contest at UK agent Tibor Jones. It’s free to enter and open to all genres written in English. Deadline is 8th March 2011 and submissions can be emailed.

 

 

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Petrichor

Hello,

Yesterday the snow disappeared from my part of Ireland. Further snowfalls predicted by our national weather service failed to appear, in line with the more accurate forecast on Metcheck. Instead we had heavy rain and there’s more due today. Rarely have I been so glad to see rain. I love snow, I really do, but after almost three weeks of being unable to leave my house except for essential supplies and having to cancel numerous Christmas social trips and postpone writing work, I was glad this morning to wave off my family to work and school and montessori.

From rain to petrichor (pronounced Pet Ri Cur) which is the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell. There is something wonderful about that scent, especially after a parched spell of summer weather. I also like the ultra-green colour of the foliage which often comes with it as the growing things re-hydrate and enjoy the freshness. Do other weather events have a specific smell? I imagine thunder does, but fog has more of a taste, I believe.

The wet weather has freed me to finally begin major revisions on my novel “The Morning After Service”, hence the happy waving-off of my family this morning. This week is also marked by the publication of the 2010 Bylines Calendar, a diary for writers filled with useful information and weekly inspirational articles by writers, including me for my third time in this anthology. If you’re interested in submitting a piece for next year’s calendar the deadline is March 1.

happy reading and writing whatever the weather,

Grace

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Sharawadgi Snowmen

Hello,

Thanks to some unusually cold weather here, I’m blogging on Thursday evening rather than Monday. I’m aiming to resume the usual Monday evening slot from next week. Apparently this cold snap is the worst since 1981, which I recall as the year the snow caused my school to close – the only time during my education and an event which caused much rejoicing in my young heart.

This week’s word is sharawadgi (I have been unable to source pronunciation details for this word, sorry!). The garden visit site defines this word as being a Chinese gardening term of unknown origin which describes a garden design feature of irregular, surprisingly and great beauty. The European gardeners adopted the concept when they began building follies in their large estate gardens. Wikipedia goes to great length to resolve the unknown origin part, but it seems likely this is an invented term and none the less fun for that.

Undoubtedly a garden of perfect symmetry and ideally clipped grass and plants is soothing on the mind. However nothing pleases me more than turning a corner and finding a wonderful plant, sculpture, or view to amaze me. It’s that “wow factor” that interior designers adore in TV home makeover programmes. Today I had my sharawadgi moment without the use of greenery, which was handy as there’s very little verdant growth in my neighbourhood these days with the snow and ice.

I turned a corner and happened upon a very dapper snowman. He wore his Dublin team scarf, a glorious green tribly, traditional carrot nose, and a wide smile. I couldn’t help but smile back at him. He was almost the same height as me which meant some hard work had been applied to his construction because I had failed to even form snowballs from the rather icy-snow lying on our garden. I went home, gathered my camera and walked out to snap the snowmen of Stamullen. I think you’ll agree that they’re a random bunch. They are irregular. I think them beautiful and they definitely surprised me in their sheer variety and number. Much of their charm lies in their head-gear or smile but certainly, they each gave me a sharawadgi moment today.

happy reading and writing,

Grace

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Scythes, sickles, and combine harvesters

Hello,

In this part of the world, it’s harvest time. Most of the work is finished near me, the hay is saved (I saw some old-fashioned pitchfork created haystacks the other day – a rare sight now), most of the cereal crops are in and I run less risk of encountering a massive combine harvester on the local narrow lanes, but I’m still passing plenty of root-vegetable trucks and in my own garden I’m gathering about 15 tomatoes at day (I grow 8 tomato plants – roma plum tomatoes and gardener’s delight cherry tomatoes outdoors) knowing that the first frosts will arrive here soon and then I’ll have to ripen the rest indoors (I will be eating them until Christmas). I’ve jarred up my dried herbs, potted up a bounty of blackberry and apple jam (my second favourite, damson is best but my tree is young and non-productive so far), and gathered the onions and garlic that survived the wet clay I planted them in. I’ve still got leeks, parsnips, beetroots, lettuce, courgette, carrots, apples, crab apples, and sconzonera (like a nutty carrot – delightful) to gather in over the next month or so. I love this time of year!

It is also the time of year when my children’s minds turn obsessively to the crucial decision of “which costume for Halloween?” Thankfully for my wallet my youngest is happy to wear last year’s black and pink witch costume again, especially as I’ve given in to her request for a broomstick to embellish the ensemble. My eldest can be trickier as he tends to change his mind at the last minute in an attempt to gain a second costume for our literally bursting costume box. We had a few hours, just the two of us, last Friday, and I sat him down with paper and pencil and we designed his outfit. Re-using a previous year’s skeleton outfit and adding a shop-bought scythe (plastic, I hasten to add), and a black cloak which I will try to construct on my trusty sewing machine, I think we have the core of an excellent costume of Death from the Discworld. He hasn’t read the wonderful Terry Pratchett books yet, but he loves the covers and is confident (more than I am) that I can create a suitably spooky look by October 31st. However my sister (who joins us on the night with her own son) has just upped the ante by texting me a picture of her costume so now I have to create something for myself – argh. Not enough hours in the day!

Anyhow, scythes were naturally a topic in our house this week and co-incidentally so were combine harvesters due to an animated one in a school story. I had to explain how each worked. Did you know you can still do courses on how to cut your fields by scythe and we had proverbs involving them? I’d say it’s a great workout and in fact I think the company I previously worked for once did a charity meadow-reap in a park by scythe and had half the staff out with bad backs afterwards. I’ve never handled a real one, but I have played with a (very blunt) sickle as several hung on the garden wall of my grandparents’ home and they fascinated me. I suppose the soviet hammer (industry) and sickle (agriculture) was a clever piece of design considering it covered the two big employments of the day. Of course a sickle is a unit of currency in Harry Potter’s world, I doubt Stalin would like that too much. If you’re interested in either tool for your own plot, much to my surprise, they can both still be bought online – do a quick google search.

If you’re harvesting this month, I wish you sharp tools, huge crops, crisp weather, and no back-ache.

Happy writing and reading,

Grace

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Cerulean Blue

cerulean blue and solar panel

I love blue, it’s been my favourite colour since I finally outgrew the girlish pink/red obsession. If you peaked into my wardrobe, nearly every hanger would display some shade of blue. Before I realised that my lack of sea-legs would end my ambition to own a yacht (just a small one, I wasn’t greedy) I had planned to call her “Indigo Dream”, another nod towards the blue palette. But if I were pushed to name my favourite shade, it would have to be cerulean blue.

I paint watercolours for my own enjoyment (when I get time, which is rare) and trust me, the cerulean section of my paintbox is used up faster than nearly any other colour. There’s something about the bright, clear, freedom of a blue sky overhead that makes the spirits soar and today, thank goodness, is the fourth day in a row that I’ve had it sparkling above me. Which is particularly useful as we finally got out our solar panels fitted last Friday and now have very hot water in our taps for free 24 hours a day. Admittedly it will be eight-ten years in paying for itself despite the government grant, and it will only yield about 80% of our hot water on overcast days in winter, but I just love it and it should give us hot water for free for up to 30 years. If you’re in Ireland, I would be happy to recommend The Energy Centre for the work. They started at 8am, took no tea breaks (shock!), cleaned up perfectly after themselves and were gone by 4.15 in the afternoon. One of them even re-stacked my linens in the airing cupboard after the work was done.

As for cerulean, well, it’s a beautiful word, perhaps not as wonderful as the colour it describes but it does its best, and why should any writer use “blue” in a description when they could use “cerulean” or even “sky-blue”? Beautiful words should be used and saved from vocabulary oblivion in my opinion. There’s no need to scatter them about like confetti, but let’s not allow them to fade into oblivion either, ok?

I’m going to be taking a closer look at some other painter terms over the next few posts as I think they lend great depth to writing and descriptions without being too obtuse for the average reader to understand. But, remember, and this is for my mother who always claimed it was red, cerise is a bright shade of pink, ok? Not red!!! If you’re not sure on any colour, go to your local art-shop and ask or check out the fanciful shade-names on colour cards for interior paints.

Happy writing, Grace

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Canvassers and Potholes

Two objects kept cropping up this week in between revising my writing goals for the year and working on a personal essay and my local paper column.

The first was canvassing as we’re having local (and European) elections in these parts on the 5th of June and the usual suspects are knocking on my door, usually when I am halfway through making dinner or my child has just demanded an urgent bathroom trip. I particularly enjoyed watching one candidate’s team cutting down the posters of the opposition candidate in order to hang their own! I’m still not sure whether I approve of their craftiness or disapprove of this undermining of the democractic process.

Either way, the term canvass was in my head as a word topic for this week’s blog until I discovered that the origins of the term are lost in time and are better elucidated by Charles Hodgson on his excellent blog/podcast. So irritating to have my thunder stolen in such a fashion, but an excellent resource to find for any word-buffs out there. I’ve signed up for the weekly podcast and will add him to my links list here.

The other word floating in my mind, thanks to a couple of short cycles on my new bike, was pothole. Most of the roads near me (and certainly all those I choose for cycling because they’re relatively lightly used) are L roads (L stands for Local). This means they’re one step up from a walking trail – no hard shoulder, no footpath, no white line down the middle because there’s barely enough room for two cars to pass each other. While major N roads and motorways are reasonably well-maintained, L roads are towards the end of a long list, especially with local council budgets being cut due to the recession. So we have a pothole or two on our local roads. Or two hundred might be closer to the case. I’ve had a quick look for the origin of the word pothole, but instead found plenty of advice on how the original laying of the road and cold winters combined with wet Springs (yes, we had those this year) erode the surface using freeze-thaw action which I recall from school Geography lessons. I even came across a site dedicated to the darn things in the UK.

So it amused me to find a tonne of references on Irish sites complaining that they only exist in Ireland (these listed alongside the ones from several other countries saying the same thing). Some writers reckoned it was connected to our local elections, that the potholes were deliberating being allowed to deteriorate so that we remembered that we needed our local councillors for one job at least. It’s not quite up there with “the second gunman in Dallas” as conspiracy theories go, but I still don’t believe it. I’ve lived in this village now for six years and one road which I drive or cycle about 3 times a week, has a cyclical pothole issue. They build in depth and magnitude for about 6-9 months, then the council fills them with a tar and gravel mix which fixes it for 6 months and then the cycle repeats. There are aspirational notes about widening and straightening this road on our local area development plan (and adding footpaths which would be a real benefit for me as a cyclist and for local kids walking to the under-construction sports and community complex on the road), but I’ve lived through two of those development plans and have yet to see even one item fulfilled, so I am a tad cynical.

As for the origin of the word pothole. I am guessing it relates to their generally circular nature and their ability to hold water (to drench the unwary cyclist!). What I hadn’t known was that they can be called chuckholes in the US (presumably related to their ability to chuck the wheels from your vehicle if approached without due care and attention) or even kettles. Now is that a case of the pothole calling the kettle black?

In other eco-news, we were approved for our solar panel grant today. It reduces the price by about 20% and we hope to have the panels installed during June.

May your path avoid potholes and canvassers, Happy Writing, Grace

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tendrils

Around here, Spring has definitely sprung. My sympathies are extended to those of you still shovelling snow from your driveways but thanks to a mild (if wet) temperate maritime climate I’m getting daytime highs of about 16-18 Celcius and my vegetables are sprouting outdoors as well as on the windowsill and in the cold-frame. One that I’ve planted extras of this year is pea-seed. I love the peas, I enjoy the de-podding, I quite like the growing tips in salads, and mercifully in my slightly water-logged patch, the slugs don’t seem to eat them too much. Famous last words no doubt and my entire crop will be decimated this Summer.

Peas (and beans of which I grow a few too) climb up their supports using twisty little mini-stems called tendrils. My grape vine has them too (and no, I haven’t had any grapes yet with growing them outside on a south-facing fence, but it’s a very pretty climber). I just love the word tendril – it sounds like the stem twines about the supports with a tender, gentle motion. And yet, like tender love, it can be tremendously strong to support the weight of a plant often laden in mid-Summer with heavy pods.

So the next time you see a climber, and its tendrils, inching its way up a wall, trellis, or supporting tree, remember that it does so with tiny curls of stems which individually look puny and are easy to snap off, yet they manage it. I think writing can be like that, each successful submission is like one more tendril bringing you closer to your readers. The flashy words you use can be the flowers and leaves, undoubtedly the sturdy root system of grammar, vocabulary, research, revision, and craft is vital, but without those tiny tendrils, you’d just have ground cover plants…yawn.

And if you’re into gardening – this year I’m growing my own gathered peas from last year’s ambassador and etza’s krombek as well as runner bean enorma (purely for my kids). I’ve found dwarf french beans and borlotti beans are terroized by the wildlife in my garden unfortuntely. I get my organic seeds from The Organic Centre.

In eco news, I have finally bought myself a new bicycle. About a decade ago I used to cycle regularly for social outings and to work but a move to the country (where longer distances and bulky work equipment put paid to work cycling) and two babies and a driving test later have found me increasingly behind the wheel of a combustion engine vehicle. I’m collecting my new two-wheeled transport tomorrow and am very proud to say that my writing paid for it thanks to my regular column at The Meath Coaster. I can’t wait to get pedalling, despite the number of pot-holes on the narrow, twisty roads near my home. If I handled city centre traffic surely I can dodge a few tractors?

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Candlepower and horsepower

I enjoyed my first Earthhour, despite spending it alone (kids abed and husband supporting at a soccer game, under floodlights, tsk tsk).  I settled down in the comfy armchair, with a glass of red wine, and some crochet. It turns out that I can crochet perfectly fine with the light of just two candles.

candlepowered crochet

Which prompted me to think of the word candlepower. It’s the unit of light given by one candle but surely that is dependent on size of candle, reflective surface behind it, etc? I think I am more of a fan of the word horsepower. I’ve always loved the idea that our modern cars are compared using the pulling power of a noble horse. The venerable French car, the Citroen 2CV (or duex cheveaux [sic] which means two horses) was one I longed for, before I learned to drive, purely because it put the horsepower in the name so elegantly.

And thinking of animals and trying to be true to my promise of writing contest details in this blog (drawn from my books) – here’s one on the theme of animals…

Until next time, Happy Writing, by any power,

Grace

Angels in Disguise Contest (www.angelanimals.net/awards.html)

July 15, 2009 (annual), USA

Nonfiction – true story / personal essay about an animal

Entry Fee: free

Prize: 250 US dollars (1st), 25 (2-6th place)

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