Salt and corrosion

Here is a thing that might stave off soul-crushing ennui for a minute or two. Or fill in a coffee break. One or the other.

I have got out of the habit of my random words. Out of the habit and only a quarter of the way through. That doesn't bode well.

25. Queue
From the Anglo-Norman queue, meaning, er, queue (or tail). Not as exciting as I'd hoped.

You will of course be familiar with queueing theory, a branch of statistics that attempts to predict waiting times. A basic formula used in queueing theory is Little's Theorem, which states N=λT, where N is the average number of customers, λ is the average customer arrival rate and T is the average service time. So, for example, if more customers arrive but the service time stays the same, then the number of customers waiting will increase. Or if customers arrive at the same rate, but the time taken to serve them decreases, then the average number of customers will decrease. So, yes, that was a morning well spent by Little.

The thing is, queueing theory is all about helping organisations reduce waiting time. What's more interesting to me is the behaviour of people in queues. I'm always impressed how people keep a mental queue, even when there isn't a physical one; how a shop assistant can ask, 'Who's next?' and, as one, everyone turns to the right person. I also like the little dance when two people aren't sure who's next. Looking and pointing and 'Is it you? No? Is it me? Are you sure? All right then.'

There is so much etiquette to queueing. What to do if a new checkout opens at the supermarket and the operator says to someone at the back of a queue, 'You can come through this one': Are you obligated to let the person in front of you know? What if someone says, 'I've only got two things, can I go ahead of you?': Do you oblige?

Old ladies, I have found, are the worst. I was once pushed out of the way by an old lady using her trolley as a battering ram to get to a freshly-opened supermarket checkout. Another one, in a department store at Christmas, took the place ahead of me in the queue with an empty trolley, while her middle-aged daughter ran around the store and fetched things to fill it. That, f-list, is bad queue etiquette.

Next time: mutton

Here is a thing I would not want to see walking towards me in a forest. Or anywhere, really.

In early September I read The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, which is a collection of magazine columns that Nick Hornby wrote about the books he read each month. Well, I thought, I can do that too, even it might be for just one month. It would be nice to demonstrate to myself that I read more than ridiculous old novels.

( September books read )

This week's random word:

23. Joy

Our forebears were so keen on the word 'joy' that it replaced three Middle English words: wunne, hight and rot, all of which meant the same thing. They must have been a happy lot back then to need all those words for joy.

Also: it's my mum's middle name. So there you go.

Next week: lunch

Today I have been to Terang, half an hour out of the City by the Sea. It is local football finals weekend, apparently. I don't know. There seems to be a higher than usual amount football-related guff in today's paper, at any rate. Driving out of the City by the Sea, some street signs and traffic lights were decorated with blue and white streamers, and others were decorated with black and red streamers, which I took to be a football-supporter thing. Only then on road sign outside Terang was decorated with red and blue streamers, so that was a bit confusing.

The reason for going to Terang was that my mother announced that she has grown tired of making patchwork quilts. This is a shocking development and I would have been concerned that she was, in fact, tiring of life itself had she not finished the statement by suggesting that she is seeking other sewing-based thrills, viz. would I like an overnight bag and, if so, would I care to come to Terang and buy the fabric? I'm still not sure why we had to go to Terang for that, but it was a nice morning out.

Terang is too small to attract the national retail chains, so it is full of little shops that evolve to fill various niches. We didn't cross the road to find out what Hatz Off sells*, but we stopped into Boxes & Blooms, which sells: tomato and cyclamen plants, Pandora charm bracelets, mugs and more Schleich horse figurines than you could poke a stick at, which seems like an unusual set of merchandise, but best of luck to them.

As well as the material for the bag, I also bought myself the owl version of these things (just the timber frame, not the kit with the charts and such). I could hang it off my new bag when it's done. What should I stitch on it?

This week's random word: ( 21. Abaft )

Next week: plain



* The internet tells me it's a hairdresser.

Today I went to Port Fairy's annual second-hand book fair. There was also a market on the civic green, featuring a number of food stalls. One had a sign — a professional canvas sign, not just something scribbled on blackboard — that said its name was 'ARGUABLY THE BEST SAUSAGE ROLLS AND RICEBALLS IN THE WORLD'. Catchy.

Driving home from Port Fairy, my windscreen wipers were dragging on the windows, so instead of going straight home, I went to Super Cheap Auto and bought some new wiper blades. They come in colours now. I picked the red ones.

There was an article in this week's medical newspaper about a boy in Queensland who used over-the-counter eyedrops and developed toxic epidermal necrolysis, which led to ( horrible side-effects ). So that was a fun thing to read just before putting in my prescription eyedrops.

Speaking of my eyedrops, do you remember my glasses of DOOM? It took a week between my checkup and the arrival of version one of the glasses. It's now been two and a half weeks since my last appointment and I haven't got the second version yet. I rang the optometrist yesterday, just to see what was happening. They told me that there was a problem with their computer, so the lenses had to be sent away for grinding and it might be another week or so. Okay then. I can't help but think this is much harder than it should be.

There is an episode of The Simpsons in which the world's largest cubic zirconia comes to Springfield. It's about the size of a room, and I must admit that's what I was imagining when I read this. Then I saw this photo and thought, well, yes, that makes more sense.

This week's random word:

19. Bad

Well, this was educational. Where do you think 'bad' comes from? I bet you can't guess. It goes like this:

Bad, from Middle English bade, meaning wicked, evil or depraved, from Old English bæddel, meaning... hermaphrodite. I did not see that coming.

Next week: nudiustertian

A few weeks ago, my mother's partner made a cauldron for their local primary school's Olympic Games lessons. The other day, the teacher who organised it popped in with a thank-you gift: a huge box of fruit and vegetables, mostly homegrown. Too many for two people to eat, so my mother has brought some in for me: lemons, apples, oranges and half a pineapple (I don't think that was homegrown). I already have some lemons on my own little tree, plus two other people have given me some, so I am swamped with lemons just now. So many lemons. I am thinking: lemon curd, maybe a lemon cake. Any other suggestions?

This week's random word:

17. Putto

I have lived my whole life believing that Cupid, the chubby little winged chap with bow and arrows, was a cherub, and now I learn that he is not. Cherubim are chubby little winged angels. Chubby little winged chaps of a secular nature are putti; Cupid is a putto. In fact, cupids are their own special type of putti, also being called amorini or amoretti*. So you can call Cupid an amorino, an amoretto or a putto, but, whatever you do, don't call him a cherub.

We think of putti and cherubim as winged babies, but they aren't. They are winged little beings that just happen to look like babies. A crucial difference. As the man quoted on Wikipedia says, so many artists have tried to make them not look like babies and simply made them look hideous instead.

I wrote the above paragraphs one morning, and later did the ironing while watching Bargain Hunt, which featured in passing an antique dressing table with a gilt statue on it. The statue was Diana, said the host, with a putto at her feet. Have I been hearing this word my whole life and just not registered it?



* Not to be confused with amaretti. Don't put amoretti in your coffee. They would drown.

Next week: fulgor

I've had a busy day, sort of. By my standards, anyway. My mother came in and we went for a walk on the beach. Not long after we started, she pointed and said, 'Oh, poor bird.' There was a little grey bird spread out on the beach. I thought it was dead too, but as we looked, it moved its head slightly. On closer inspection, it seemed to have a broken leg. So we ummed and ahhed a bit and decided that if it was still there when we got back, we would take it to the vet. For the rest of the walk, we dithered about it: on the one hand, you're not supposed to interfere with these things; on the other, people bring dogs to that beach, and the bird was sitting down by the shoreline where the racehorses run too, and neither of those would be particularly good things to happen to it. It was still there when we came back, so my mother picked it up because she was wearing gloves. That meant I had to drive to the vet clinic, which made my mother fret the whole way there, because I hadn't brought my licence with me and she had visions that psychic police officers would know that and pull us over. Fortunately, the psychic police officers weren't rostered on this morning and we made it to the vet clinic without being stopped. Phew. Anyway, the vet nurse took the bird and promised that they would take it to the wildlife shelter if they thought it could be healed; otherwise they would put it down humanely. So that was nice. Personally, I think it was nearly gone anyway, but I feel better that we gave it a chance. Home again, we looked it up in the bird book and decided that it was an Antarctic prion, which I think sounds like a car and which the book says frequently wash up on the southern Australian coast.

There was a man waiting at the reception desk at the vet's. An older woman came out of the one of the consulting rooms with two boisterous retrievers and said, 'Dave! I've been meaning to call your mum. What are you doing here?' Dave didn't answer; he pushed the door of the other consulting room open, so we could all see a woman clutching something wrapped in a towel to her, crying. The woman with the retrievers shut the door and said, 'Oh, Dave, it was just a puppy.' Dave couldn't answer; he just shook his head. I was glad when the vet nurse called us in, because, sad and all as the little bird was, watching the tableau of Dave's puppy was even sadder.

After that, my mother had to get some stuff down the street, including a visit to the newsagent. They have some new pulp westerns, still with delightful tags and titles:

You have to be bad to get into…
Sin Castle
(I'd have thought so, yes.)

Relax, pilgrim…
Next Bullet is for You

It's real good country but…
Watch Out For Flyin' Lead

Then we went to see The Sapphires, which seemed... under cooked, but was a pleasant couple of hours' diversion.

When I picked up my new glasses, I spent a couple of days with that new glasses feeling, which I just sort of shrugged off. I've had plenty of new glasses over the years, and it always feels a bit weird. I've been thinking, though, that there's something not quite right, as though I'm just on the edge of seeing clearly, but can't quite get there. I could nearly get there if I held my glasses in place and really concentrated, but as soon as I let them slip just a tiny bit, it would all be wrong again. The other night I was driving home at about 11pm, so in the dark and rain, and I realised I couldn't see the road signs properly. I could tell them by the shape and colour, but I could only read them clearly when I was right under them. So that was a bit scary. I spent some time staring at the kitchen clock yesterday and determined that the left eye is fine but the right eye is hopelessly blurred, even more than it was with the old prescription, which is why I have new glasses in the first place. So they've put in the wrong lens, or I've somehow failed the eye test. Once I worked that out, I put my old glasses on and my face relaxed. I didn't realise, but I've been frowning for the last week. I nearly cried from relief. I've also since realised, now it's gone, that I've had a dull headache all week too. So it's back to the optometrist on Monday.

This week's random word:

( 15. Careen )

Buy one bottom, get one free!, said a sign in a shop window today. So that would come in handy.

This week's random word:

13. Cowpuncher

I had to look on the internet to verify that cowpuncher is a real word. It is. It means cowboy. And here's me thinking cowpoke was a silly term.

You may be thinking, 'Alicia, what was the life of the cowpuncher like?' Well, let me tell you. Documentary evidence suggests that cow punching was an easy life, with very little work involved, thus leaving a great deal of time to participate in hijinks and hang out at the saloon with their oddly named friends. By 'documentary evidence', I mean: Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher by Eleanor Gates, published 1907. It's a totally reliable source, I'm sure.

Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher is the story of a match-making cowboy in the great state of Oklahomaw (not a typo). He's so famed among the other cowpunchers for his match-making that his nickname is Cupid (in fact, the book was originally published as Cupid: The Cowpuncher, and I don't know why anyone would even think of changing that). Cupid's best friend is called Hairoil and his horse is a pinto called Maud.

The book begins with Hairoil teasing Cupid that Cupid has made so many matches 'twixt lovelorn 'punchers and young widdas (seriously, this book is brim full of young widdas) that it's Cupid's turn now, and Hairoil says he knows just the girl is coming to town soon. This girl, oh, she's amazing: she has 'big grey eyes, with long, black, sassy winkers, and brown hair that’s all kinda curly over the ears. Then her cheeks is pink, and she’s got the cutest mouth a man ’most ever seen.' Cupid is intrigued at the idea of this 'grey-eyed, sassy-winkered' gal.

Cupid works (for the loosest possible definition of 'works' since he never actually does any) for old man Sewell at the Bar Y ranch, and has known old man Sewell's daughter, a young widda called Rosie, since she was knee-high to a hop toad. Despite this, he has failed to notice that Rosie has a sister, who turns out to be the same girl Hairoil was talking about at the start: sassy-winkered Macie Sewell.

A travelling patent medicine show comes to town. The salesman runs a contest: anyone who purchases his medicine can vote for the town's prettiest woman and its homeliest man. Cupid is confident that his friend Monkey Mike will take the homeliest man contest at a canter, but the prettiest woman contest is tightly fought, with all the 'punchers voting for sassy-winkered Macie Sewell and all the railway men voting for the eating house waitress. Macie wins, and then, in a shocking twist, it turns out that her other suitor has talked everyone into voting for Cupid in the homeliest man contest. Cupid is embarrassed, but he gets the last laugh on the way home when Macie dumps the other suitor and runs after Cupid.

Now that they're together, Cupid and Macie join forces to find spouses for all their friends (except, sadly, Hairoil, who never even gets a look in). For example, Cupid helps the sheriff, who is going to be lynched by a mob of angry Mexicans who believe that he threw a meteorite on top of the young widda Bridges' hawg house while trying to evict her. There's a sentence I never thought I'd write. All's well that ends well, though, as the sheriff didn't really throw the meteorite, and the young widda Bridges sells it to a museum in Noo York and uses the money to pay her mortgage, thus escaping eviction. She and the sheriff get married. Obviously. That's just one of Cupid's escapades; rest assured, the others are just as nonsensical.

So everything's going swell until Macie decides she wants to be an op'ra singer in Noo York. Cupid and old man Sewell unite to stop her because being on the stage is the first step on a path of decadence and depravity. Macie runs away from the Bar Y and gets a job as a waitress the railway eatery, where Cupid's friend, Upstate, a tubercular Native American, encourages her to follow her dream of going to Noo York. By 'encourages', I mean he advises her to go, and also facilitates this by leaving her five hundred dollars in his will. Macie goes to Noo York; Cupid realises he's been an idiot and follows her. He plans to find her by waiting in Central Park until she comes past.

This plan works.

There is a bit of faffing about, but eventually Cupid and Macie reconcile, get engaged and decide to head home. Sadly, Cupid has spent what little money he had on renting a horse to ride around Central Park and Macie has spent her money from the Native American on singing lessons, so they are stuck. Fear not, though, because Cupid gets a posthumous letter from Upstate, who knew that they would be in this pickle, so held back a further five hundred dollars to be passed on at a later date. Phew, hey?

They go home, get married and Cupid gets half the Bar Y ranch. The end.

( You'll be wanting some samples of this fine work, of course )

In summary, at no point in this book were any cows punched.

Next week: raisin

This is delightful. (Warning: it makes a noise.) I have left my design playing while typing, and it's quite soothing. Which was good, because I needed soothing after this. It made me dizzy. (Warning: it also makes a noise.)

This week's random word:

11. Nigh

It means 'near', obviously. The end is nigh; it's well-nigh impossible. That sort of thing. The comparative form is nigher and the superlative is nighest, which are two words I've never actually heard used. Perhaps try using them in conversation today. 'Could you pass the salt, please? It's nigher to you than me.'

Something else I've never heard before, although apparently it can be done: nigh used as a verb, the same as near can be. Perhaps you're eager to get home as the end of the working day nighs; perhaps you get hungry as dinner-time is nighing; perhaps you grew sleepy as sunset nighed.

Also: controversy! Nigh refers to a side. But, and this is where the controversy comes in, the sources I checked are in disagreement about what side. Some are very firm that nigh means left, as in 'pull on the nigh side rein to turn the carriage, Trevor'. Others insist that nigh refers to the passenger side of a vehicle, closest to the kerb, rather than the driver's side. So for those of us who drive on the left, the nigh side is indeed on the left; for those who drive on the right, the nigh side is the right. So if your carriage horse bolts in Australia but your driver is Canadian, don't mention the nigh side rein at all. Best to avoid confusion.

Next week: Marjoram

A heads-up: I am about to begin a book that Wikipedia describes as '[a] Victorian "sensation" novel, remembered chiefly for its elaborate and implausible plot'. They hooked me with 'elaborate' and reeled me in with 'implausible'. I'm sure you'll be hearing all about it.

I realised this week that I have been misnumbering my random words. I've done one more than I thought I had. So we're up to number...

9. Bopping

The verb 'to bop' has two definitions. The first is onomatopoeic, meaning to hit lightly (with, I imagine, a comedy police truncheon). The second comes from the jazz term, bebop, and means to dance to popular music. So there you go: watch out you don't bop someone while you're bopping.

I am oddly disappointed to discover that 'bop' is a new word that doesn't have a Middle English definition about tilling fields with three oxen, or gathering chestnuts with a special stick, or suchlike. I will bop the upper field today, Wymarda*. That sounds plausible, doesn't it?

This song seemed to be in the charts for half my childhood:



It's an Australian song, so probably most of you won't have heard it. I should warn you, it's one of our more deadly earworms. Also: Nicole Kidman and her hair!



* I looked up a list of names in the 1300s for that.**
** According to which, Alicia was the second most common female name for freeman's wives in Kent between 1302 and 1363, although the roll was recorded in Latin, so the women were probably called Alice. There was also one Anicia, but that's thought to be a typo*** for Auicia, the Latin form of Avice. Can you guess the most common name? ( It's not Mary )
*** Or write-o, I suppose.

Next week: Oink

So here is a new and interesting thing: you can sign up to learn a word of Bininj Gunwok (a family of Aboriginal languages from Northern Australia) a few times a week.

This week's random word:

7. Purse
I have been puzzling about this all week, because I did not think I had any thoughts about purses. By 'purse', I mean a small pouch for holding coins or keys or whatnot. I know some people use the word to mean a bigger bag too, but that, to me, is a handbag. You can put a purse in a handbag, but you can't put a handbag in a purse. There is a grey area where the two intersect, and that is the clutch bag or clutch purse, but you can avoid problems by just calling it a clutch.

I have a purse in my handbag. It's a green-sequinned affair for holding three sets of keys. It's all right. I mean, it does the job. When I think of purses, the first one I think of the one my grandmother had in the 1970s, which I used to play with during Mass when I was very little. It was a gold Glomesh number, which I thought was the height of elegance (after looking at a large number of photos, I believe it to be the square gold purse in the first photo on this page). It had a beautifully smooth clicking mechanism, and I loved rubbing my finger over the purse itself and feeling the mesh rippling. For a very long time, I thought chain-mail was made of Glomesh. Imagine how funky those knights would have been: ready to battle by day, disco by night.

Next week: Ripple