Welsh
In a slight departure from the norm, I’m going to write about a language – one that isn’t English. There are those who would tell you that Welsh as a language is dead and not relevant any more but I don’t think so. They have television, radio, books and newspapers in the language and from my visits there it still seems very much alive. The other reason I like Welsh so much is that I find the accent incredibly sexy when spoken by a pretty girl. There, I said it. Now you all know the real reason. I could wax lyrical for ages about why but some things in life simply cannot or need not to be explained. The fact that I seem to be in a distinct minority in my predelictions bothers me not one jot.
Read MoreShe was only…
Ah, the irresistible urge of a cheap sexual innuendo! My somewhat lax attempts at researching the origins of this particular form drew a big fat zero. My guess would be the music hall, vaudeville and burlesque shows of England and the US (back in the time when we shared a similar sense of humour). The basis of the gag is simple – puns, wordplay and, of course, a cheap sexual gag disguised as something more innocent. Regular readers will know what a fan of the Blackadder comedies I am, so I was particularly pleased with a wonderful non sequitur from Hugh Lawrie in Blackadder Goes Forth:”She was only the ironmonger’s daughter but she knew a surprising amount about fish as well”.
Read MoreLSD
Tee hee – I’m misleading the youth of today into coming to my blog. Aren’t I clever? Well, no, not really. I will of course be mentioning the hippy drug du choix but only in passing – the real weirdness lies further ahead.
LSD (the drug) was one of four things the Swiss have given the world (the other three being the cuckoo clock, Toblerone triangular chocolate and the army knife). A Swiss chemist named Albert Hoffmann discovered it in the 1930s while working for a pharmaceutical company in Basle. In case you’re of a scientific bent, the formula is C20H25N3O. The chemical name for it is lysergic acid diethylamide, so I fail to see where the “LSD” abbreviation comes from, even though I have read texts which try to explain it. Hoffman himself experimented with the drug, which I think says a lot. If you think you’re a small petunia called Arabella, you probably aren’t in a frame of mind to name anything.
Read MoreShibboleth
A shorter description today but I think an interesting one. The word shibboleth is of Hebrew origin and means “stream” or (more usually) “a plant containing grain”, such as corn or wheat. The word was originally very powerful, as it was used – according to a biblical story – by one Jephthah (catchy name) who was leader of a semitic tribe called the Gileadites to distinguish his enemies. The Gileadites had a bit of a fight with another tribe, the Ephraimites. Victorious in battle, they set up a blockade to catch their fleeing foes. I’m just guessing here but I imagine one semitic tribesman looked very much like another and it was difficult to know who the bad guys were. The one noticeable difference was that the Ephraimites lacked the sh sound in their language. They would stop a man at the blockade and make him say shibboleth – if he instead said ‘sibboleth’ he was in for a very bad day indeed. Here’s the passage in full:
Read MoreTrojan
