Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)’s Comments (group member since Sep 20, 2013)

Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)’s comments from the Net Work Book Club group.

Lexie wrote: "I didn't think it was very Charlotte Bronte-ish to make up new words so I looked it up. Oxford English Dictionary has it first recorded in 1623, and also used by Walter Scott. Can't say it's the wo..."

Well, now, there we are. I have to say I haven't read much Scott, so that explains it. I read two or three of his novels in highschool but a couple of years back I tried Ivanhoe and couldn't concentrate on it.

Here's one of those words I've only ever seen in one book, and that book is Jane Eyre. When Mrs Rochester is flitting around the house at night, Jane sees her for a moment, and hears her laugh, in a strange, metallic "cacchination."

WTH?

I have no idea how to pronounce that. And I've never seen it used anywhere else. Not even Shakespeare or Ben Jonson. I asked a friend who has a degree in Eng Lit and she thought a moment, and then replied, "Maybe Bronte made it up."

Have to be a British toh-mah-to then...you mean later, tayter!

Oh Groovy those are lovely! I can make a granny square, or at least I could, but my work doesn't bear close examination.

Groovy my doctor says if you're aware of your forgetfulness it's not Alzheimer's. Alz patients think they're fine.

I've been doing a bit of sewing for my bestie. Her mom is about as big as a minute, so I had to shorten some PJ pants for her--cut off about 7 inches and hemmed them up. Sewing makes things vanish; you put down the scissors and they're gone, even though you put them right there, etc. DH laughs his head off because he says at some point he will hear me cry, "Where is everything?" as if I were floating alone in deep space.

It is the tone of voice I use when I ask myself the question that cracked me (and cracks other people) up when they hear it. It's like, totally mystified: "What am I looking for....do I know?" Like, does anyone have the requisition sheet so I can check? LOL

I used to have a jpg image that showed a guy hugging his computer monitor with hearts all around. The caption said, "I love my computer--all my friends live in it!"

I only really discovered YouTube a couple years back. I have since found out it's a valuable resource for recipes, sewing tutorials, good music and all sorts.

I don't know if this counts as a "love" but I say it a lot. I caught myself yesterday and laughed really hard. You know how they say that one of the three signs of aging is memory loss...and I can't remember the other two.

Well, of late, I hear myself say, "What am I looking for, do I know?" Often while staring wildly into the pantry, knowing I opened the door for a reason!

My tablet is my best bud, it sits on my night table and plays nature sounds on YT for me so I can fall asleep. Not many know that the original "tablet" dates back centuries; it was a sort of pocket-book made of thin sheets of ivory held together with leather or ribbon. You could write on it with a graphite stick or certain inks, and then clean it off when you didn't need to remember whatever. Cheaper than paper, in those days. (Think of it! Ivory, cheaper than paper!)

Then the "tablet" was that top-bound notebook we carried to school. Remember the Big Chief tablets? All through elementary they had this serious guy with the full headdress...then suddenly in the 70s he was this hippy Indian with beads and braids and a wild shirt and shades!

And now, my tablet is my window on the world. I listen to birds in the forest in Bulgaria or Japan...a crackling fire filmed in Australia...street sounds from London...the sea off the coast of Italy.

You're a native speaker, you'll never need to take it. I tell my students the truth--they'll end up speaking better than me, because they've studied it in depth.

That takes the (beaten) biscuit!

That would be Tofurkey, which exists.

Last Minute Turkey

It's the day before Christmas and the butcher is just locking up when a man pounds on the door. "Please let me in, " says the man, "I forgot to buy a turkey and my wife will kill me if I don't come home with one."

"Okay, " says the butcher. "Let me see what's left." He goes into the freezer and discovers that there's only one scrawny turkey left. He brings it out to show the man.

"That one's too skinny. What else have you got"? says the man. The butcher takes the bird back into the freezer and waits a few minutes then brings the same turkey back out to the man.

"Oh no, " says the man, "that one doesn't look any better. You better give me both of them."

Yeah, but if I teach someone wrong pronunciations and they fail their exams, where would I be.

Another word I just realised I've been mis-pronouncing all my life because I've only read it in books, never heard it said: Implacable. All my life, in my head, it's been "im-play-cah-ble." As in "unable to placate". And yet I know it's a French borrowing, and I know how to pronounce it in French. Watching several Austen movies, it is always pronounced "im-plah-cah-ble." They are highly trained actors, if they were saying it wrong somebody would correct them.

Oops. Wouldn't be so bad except I teach ESL. Gotta get it right.

Who doesn't love a spoonerism? That's when you reverse sounds in two words. I just cracked myself up with one. When asked what's for dinner, I said, "We have lice and rentals" instead of "rice and lentils."

mrbooks wrote: "It sounds like someone getting on a soap box and passing judgment. Didn't the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz us that particular word ?

Deliberate is another word that sounds just right. He deliberate..."
You're absolutely right about "pontificate." That's exactly what it means!

Brown shoes are considered tacky in the upper classes of England, except with tweeds. I remember being in our local department store and hearing a very haw-haw Englishwoman say to her husband, "Oh Peter, no-one wears brown shoes." She was standing next to a wall-rack full of brown shoes at the time.

Welcome to the nuthouse Sonya! Grab a cup of something tasty and make yourself at home!