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
Wordfoolery 