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.

I've done it again, I have 3 books in English and one in French all on the go at once. (The French book is excusable, it's a massive hardback that literally weighs almost 5 lbs. That one's going to take awhile as I can only read it sitting at the table, which is not the most comfortable place in the house).

So that's:

and

and:
and, oops, sometimes at night:

Sing it with me now! "Gloom, despair, and agony on me..." Louder!

As Louise Fitzhugh said so long ago, "You've got to catch the reader's attention and hold it." The first line has to be a real hook.

I think we're poles apart.

For those of us who grind our teeth over misused apostrophes, grammar etc, this is kind of disgraceful, but funny:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/634...

I dunno how to "embed" the video or I would.

"Sort of". It seems to have taken over from "you know" as a filler phrase, particularly on the UK channels. It's sort of, you know--annoying.

LOL, Groovy...when I was in college, if someone was holding forth and being a pompous adze, my group of friends would often say, "Man...that's really beautiful!" The pompous one did not know that in our lexicon, "really beautiful" meant "total rot"!

Well, there's the whole cannibalism thing, too...though of course rationing lasted for a long time after the war...:P

T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "I think at any school age, it is important to have books that will be of interest to schoolchildren...... not something that has some obscure, hidden message that has to be explained. When you've g..."

We were force-fed books like A Separate Peace and The Catcher in the Rye and our teachers didn't understand why we didn't loooove them. Perhaps because growing up in a small, rural Midwestern town, we had absolutely nothing in common with rich boys in a posh NY boarding school in the pre-war years (or the 1950s, which for us in the 70s was ages ago). We did like Inherit the Wind because of the wit, but our teacher asked a bunch of vague questions and then got mad because we didn't regurgitate the answers she wanted.

I have since learned that at least in those days, many schools used reading lists composed of books that the principal/teachers had written papers on in college! And also, that when the students truly aren't "getting" what the teacher is asking, and the teacher responds with anger, it's usually because the idea hasn't been properly explained in the first place. Which, given these books were so far removed from anything we kids had ever lived, made sense.

Groovy wrote: "It makes me wonder if the school system was going out of its way to scar us as youngsters. Of all the wonderful, child-appropriate books out there, and they make us read about violence, murders, te..."

I have to agree, most of the YA stuff I find out there is sooo depressing. OK, so maybe we've moved on from Enid Blyton (I should hope), but most of this stuff is just soooo depressing...does "realistic" have to mean "ugly"?

Are you home-schooling?

My brother was a dangerous boy, and LOTF upset even him. He had to read it in about eighth grade and it gave him terrible nightmares for a couple of weeks. Which, if you had known him, was O.o.

Oh I kind of know what it's about, from references on BBC Radio 4 and other places. I just never sat down and read it. Maybe, on a slow day...LOL (Sorry. Short sleep again last night. I broke down and took an OTC sleeping pill because today is one of my busy days. I will pay for this, but.)

I never read it. I suppose I should but 1984 was enough for me.
Funny that...my sister was 3 yrs ahead of me in school. Several of the books she had to read were off the list by the time I got to that class...and they were the same teachers.

Groovy wrote: "I know, Orinoco. I was just jibbing you. You're from Spain, if I'm correct. I never heard of a Spaniard named Jane--LOL!!

I like your mysteriousness, keep us on our toes:) BTW, did you tell her ho..."

No. She's 74, and I doubt there's much traffic on her blog anyway. She helped me a great deal when I needed it, so it all shakes out. Also, TBH, she is good at giving "helpful criticism" but not so good at recieving it. I may, however, someday tell her I recognise some of the phrases.

Groovy, my name isn't really Jane, I just used that as an example. LOL Not that it's a secret, but for once in my life I'm being mysterious! ;P But this person can be such a stickler for what she consider professional etiquette that it surprised me. I guess it doesn't cut both ways if I'm not in her profession.

This isn't a word that annoys me, but an annoyance about words.

I have a group of personal turns of phrase that are of mine own invention. Like Humpty Dumpty, when I use a word more, I pays it extra.

Well, I have a friend who just moved back to the States after many yrs in my city. We were reasonably close. she was the sort of academic professional who writes papers etc. Since they returned home, she has started a blog/website and asked me to visit it.

Curiously enough she not only has annexed some of my particularities, she actually has used one as a title of one of her papers.

Now I know you can't copyright a phrase (case in point: "Got milk?" or "the real thing."), but we were meant to be close friends. Would have been nice if she had told me she had used it as the title of her paper. I would have done, just like, "Hey, Jane, you know how you always say (interesting turn of phrase)? Well it's so fitting, I've decided to use it in my next article."

I would have done if our roles had been reversed.

For some reason that reminded me of an old friend from the 70s who was a schoolteacher. He was much exercised one day because a friend remarked that she loved the word "Mesopotamia", and that saying it made her feel happy and content. He thought that was weird.

I thought HE was weird. If the lady found that saying "Mesopotamia" would lift her spirits, what was that to do with him?

This meander reminds me, too...I was once told that when you are about to enter a party or meeting full of people you don't know, before entering the room you should murmur the word "poem" to yourself. The person who shared this tip said "It makes you look pleasant and interested." It does, too.

T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "There is also a you tube link that you can actually hear & see the doll in action......... the voice and accent are pure laugh-in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm8yx...

.....mind you - the ..."

There's another video there, the doll is pretty battered and you can't really understand what it says...maybe that's a later recording of the same guy!
Yup, I had one.
Joanne Worley was famous for crossing her eyes and sticking her fingers in her cheek dimples.

Flash from the past! I remember that doll! It was "here comes my body!" that brought it all back! I actually think I had one.

I remember a doll with a pull-string on it called "Drowsy" that said several phrases like "I'm sleepy", "Oh I'm tired" etc. My older siblings referred to it as "Baby Shut Your Mouth!" every time the commercial came on the TV. I was about 5 or 6 and I am told that when walking through a toy shop I said loudly, "Oh look, there's Baby Shut Your Mouth!"

True, they were busy pushing the old envelope so that their grandkids could come along and be "edgy". It *is* amazing when you think that TV censorship was quietly active in those days, what they got away with.