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Mayday, A Short History Of Croydon

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Once upon a time, that time being approximately 1915, there were two little aerodromes in a big, scary world. In between them ran a teeny road, called Plough Lane, a hark back to even older times. When the aerodromes linked into one Croydon Airport, the lane was still open to public traffic: halted by a man with a red flag if a plane was due. Somewhere in the 1920s a gate was installed: times were getting less quaint, more pragmatic. Croydon was the main London Airport and a pioneer of air traffic control. It is not exactly clear (from first Google search) when Frederick Stanley Mockford (1897 - 1962) became the senior radio officer, nor exactly what event prompted nor what particular date it happened but it does seem reasonable that he was asked to think of a word that would convey an emergency situation, easily understood by all pilots and ground staff. It is likewise reasonable and feasible, since much of the early days air traffic was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airpo

Light Heart

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This week's dictionary is my dear old friend, the Heinemann English, which I received as a study aid in the year 1981. After Skeat's 1894 this seems rather modern, but Skeat has only been on my shelf for 10 years or so: Heinemann has 33 years of shared history. I can't remember when it lost the front cover. One day I will do some binding repairs, and I will keep it organic because I might take this one to my grave. And the first word it gives me is light-hearted adjective : while outside the sun is shining, the birds in full voice, the air has a feeling in it, a vibrant buzz, like someone has tapped the side of a cosmic crystal with a spoon of heavenly metal. Light-hearted has a Word Family ; light-heartedly , adverb , light-heartedness , noun ; such a lovely concept. Sun floods the moor tops: I have an urge to wander out to Feather Tor today, floating some floral print on a fine breeze. Back from the walk I will buy an ice cream from the little van, sit in t

Kiss

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Painting: Marc Chagall: The Birthday Reverend Skeat, etymologist, sometimes undermines the feeling that one has for a word; 'a salute with the lips' is sweet, but 'A kiss is a gust or taste, or something choice' is not so poetic. It is not his intention to bring us poetry here, only the historic journey. Kiss being a word that happens close, that puts two figures into one personal sphere, to think of it dispassionately seems inappropriate. The journey of language is bound up with the human journey: the historic spread of this tribe and that: the individual stumble and stride. The need to communicate, for practical terms of trade, for spiritual terms of connection, is a sort of fundamentalism that allows an open mind. Etymology, a word that travels from the Greek expressions; true, account, to speak ; is a study in connection; the connective spheres between languages; words on lips exchanged, not unlike the press of a kiss. The earth as viewed fr

Javier Via Jaguar And Jesuits

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Jaguar (picture from Flickr.com) Jagua from the Guarani language: a term used for tygers and dogs , according to the history written by Francisco Javier Clavigero. A world in which tigers and dogs are interchangeable is interesting, yes. But first I choose to look at the instant prejudice I detect in myself regarding a history of South America written by a non-South American in the year…? The dictionary I am working from this week is an 1894 edition, the Hist. of Mexico referred to most likely current to that, but that is the translation, so the original would be earlier, but I am not smart with numbers and these thoughts do not make for remarkable sentences, so I look online. Francisco was born in Mexico, it seems, of Spanish parents, September 9, 1731. His place of birth gives better credentials than expected, and furthermore: 'Clavijero's biographer, Juan Luis Maneiro, wrote:  'From the time of his boyhood, he had occasion to deal intimately with the indi

Illustrious Wash

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Illustrious , my random word selection presents. A word with French and Latin roots; this proffers no surprise. But to be termed 'a badly coined word' that props up the eyebrows. What snobbery of etymology is this? It is a dispute over the origin of -lustris, which is traceable to lustrum , to wash, or from the base luc- meaning light. The later option admitted as the more likely. But a blend of both creates an alloy that cannot detract. An image of bathing in light.

Hail

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This random word selection is proving to be a great deal of spontaneous fun. Amusing that the spontaneity is a lure when I rarely plan a post ever at all! It must be something fundamental to my blogging experience. And my life: that has a vague plan too. Living in a temperate climate of course one can always blame the weather. Travels down, cloud to ground: This word from the Greek, 'A round pebble,' Rolls through Northern climes Into my language from the Anglo Saxon: 'Hagal:' a word to grunt When the sky spits ice. Descriptive truth of that guttural utterance Plain as a cold weathered rock.

The Gentry Tangent

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At first it was obvious, gentry being the word the blind finger pointed out, I should write about social inequality . Notes: I love the history of the big houses: shun the social sectioning… My politics are not politic: they are humanitarian, they are ecologically sensible... Looking at the origins of the word, is it possible to determine how clan became class… And class, nothing without cash, or the illusion of it… Whilst these thoughts trough and peak, a random searchlight throws out over the vast cybersea… Google it… everyone's answer to everything… What's this? Flotsam, jetsam, art… An artist, working with recently obsolete media: and I think of how the swift turnover in design is both progress and wasteful and how the human element is the element I am most drawn to even in this overwhelming volume of information. http://www.nickgentry.com/ 'What about a world in which, simply by living their lives, people create vast searchable recor

Frill's Origins

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This week's dictionary is the fourth edition of the Concise Etymological as compiled by the Reverend Walter Skeat, 1894. The copy I own has a pasted in book plate, so I know that in March 1932 this book belonged to Mary Finney. The cover has some rodent damage and the pages bear some discoloration; overall it is finely made and the paper superbly silky. It strikes me as incongruous that the first word I jab (eyes closed, that's the game) is ' frill , a ruffle on a shirt.' I was expecting something less decorative, something strict, a fastidious , perhaps, or a firmament ? Yet this word has a history that traces back through Low Latin, frigidulosus ; from the Latin frigidus ; cold; and frigere ; to be cold; leaks through to Old French (sourced from the dictionaries of Roquefort) friller ; to shiver with cold; and settles as part of the English collection via the practice of hawking. A hawk ruffles its neck feathers for warmth: a chilly hawk was said to fri

E, That Was Funny

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Expostulate v (foll. by with) reason (with) esp to dissuade. This word has an old fashioned flavour. I feel it would be best used whilst sporting a monocle. It brings a nostalgia for the days when I would pack my children into my rickety car and commence on road trips visiting old country estates. We would swan the aged hallways and pretend, of course, that this was our home, and we really must chivvy the gardener as the roses have been too straggly this year. Our trip to Castle Drogo was, most memorably, on the same day that I forgot to put the shield on the hair clippers and quite balded my son. He was rather little and pale then: the effect was a post-chemo chic that caused people all day to usher us to the front of every queue. And we were too embarrassed to expostulate with them.

Domicile; Dishevelled, Delighted

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[ dom -miss-ile] n a place where one lives. Which brings me to Oscar Wilde, and a quote I will search out on Pinterest because there is bound to be a splendid graphic for it: something about how rare it is to live, most people are merely existing. Acerbically entertaining, Mr Wilde, and the heart of my vocation: I have a drive to bring aliveness to life! And it might as well start at home. Everyone says their home is a mess, usually to apologise. But I am the only person I know who swept a dead bat out from under the bed. I hate vacuuming so I sent my hoover to the tip to be recycled. I don't mind sweeping. I kept the dead bat in a flowerpot for ages, to amuse guests. Anyway, the point is, my house is for living in: part comfy shelter, part springboard, part interactive gallery.  As suspected, and pinched from a Pinterest search of Oscar's fabulous quotes. Thought of posting a picture of my house but hmmm...

A Cyclical Conclusion

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Conclusion n decision based on reasoning; ending; final arrangement or settlement. Yesterday in error the random finger alighted on 'cake,' but the game is to select and write without any real thinking time. First reaction to the reselection is disappointment: it is far too early in the alphabet game to be concluding! But it fits a life moment, here, for I have been engrossed in making decisions and have arrived at a personal conclusion. The problem I had with this was thus: a decision made becomes a concrete thing, it represents a fixing point, a full stop. I do not like to stop, I fear stagnation above all things. I had rather keep happily failing and learning than risk success. The breakthrough I have with myself is to redefine success: so that it means a point reached that enables further progress, rather than the 'death by fat desk' that I despair of. This decision is based on reasoning, and one remembers then that every ending is a point of new beg

B is for... Cake?

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This can happen when your eyes are closed. You can mistake boundaries. Clearly, cake does not begin with the requisite letter. A second attempt is therefore deemed appropriate. A second attempt gives me banisters pl n railing supported by posts on a staircase. Which being an actual boundary is an amusing replacement. I was about thirteen, or thereabouts, when I tied my brother's leg to the banister rails in our little cottage with a piece of stolen washing line and he thrashed wildly enough to knock the whole banister out, and it fell on the telephone and broke that too. As luck would have it, several years later, this turned out to be merely a bad sister's dream. I sometimes dream so vividly I have no idea that I'm dreaming: this can be horribly confusing. It's easier to separate out reality when the visions are fantastical. Mundane detail needs checking. There were no banisters in that little cottage, and the telephone was safe on a windowsill in the fron

An Abject Adjective

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This week I am using the Collins English Dictionary, First Edition 2006, for my random word selection. It is a straightforward text: main entry words in bold type, variant spellings and pronunciation given phonetically only for words deemed difficult. Parts of speech abbreviated, in italics. Section A is sectioned out: eyes closed, pages flicked: the finger jabs. The first word is not especially encouraging. Abysmal adj Informal extremely bad, awful. ( Abundant is only a column away, one notes, perhaps therein the lesson?) It is the morning, and the sun is clearing through mist. Drink tepid coffee; perform classic finger tap, ponder at the scene from the windows here. At the bottom of the abyss, Joseph Campbell asserts, there lies salvation. But abyss is a noun. Abysmal suggests that which belongs to the abyss, to the dark and distressing press. Which makes one think of media reporting and how once it had seemed serious and related to real lives and these days it is h

Abundant Dirt

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Seeds are poked into fine loam. Seedlings shifted from their tiny pot confinements to larger earth. Blue pen squiggles on the plastic markers. Little Granddaughter views the sunflower progress, satisfied. 'Are they growing?' Nam-ma asks. She looks again. 'Yes, they are. Yes, they have.' The tone: toddler-imperious. Nam-ma grins. They are and they have. She likes that the present tense precedes the past. She likes the emergent confidence. 'Good,' she says. Two coats are heaped on a workbench. Broad bean leaves are a midgreen, rounded: the peas paler and sneaking up in curls. Sunflower leaves pair like cupped open hands. Tea Break

My Black Moon

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Before the night, there is a clear sky, and the sun has a satisfied sort of glow. It warms a brisk wind so on the beach it matters not that trousers are dragged through deep pools. Dogs and children run in circles of exuberance. We speak of curves in waves and rock formations and stroke fingers over the smooth levels that the storms have stripped. Gulls call, the air is thick with salt. One lost boot is wedged in seaweed. In the rocks are many things mysterious; the tide comes, jealously, to take them back. Lying on hot granite, we eat ice cream, watch the seabirds fly. Dog buries and exhumes pebbles. Secretly we are laughing at a man adjacent who talks loudly of his lifestyle. In the car a spontaneous parody causes much amusement. Ah, poor man, you did nothing to hurt us. You were a comedic gift. We just knew by your desire to impress how fine and centred we are in our world. Still, once home and sat, in dry clothes, sipping soup, while Dog chews the ham bone retrieved fr

Teeter

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Edging to the far end of Spring's first month. The clock hands will slip forward tonight. Time melts. Winter's ghost sings in the night wind. Another new moon is nearly begun. When two new moons fall in one month, the second is called a black moon. It makes a cauldron of the sky, fills it with unknown things, with a power to catalyst. We can write phenomenal lists. We can think of all that we wish; entireties of other lives; swimming, dreaming, in unbounded dark. Morning comes as a brink.

Rain-Damp, On The 510 Bus

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There's a particular type of cold to be found at bus stops: whether rain damped or wind chilled or bit with ice. It fosters a particular type of appreciation for the thick piled fabric of the bus seat cover. The fabric pattern is avant-garde, brightly coloured. The bus doors are open. Onions are frying, over at the Gong Fu Kitchen. The driver waits for an elderly couple to recover suitcases from a taxi. He steps out to lift the cases in, while they worry that the taxi driver has left without a tip: I meant to give him something, the lady sighs. They look for their bus passes, synchronised. I never would have thought of the bus, the lady sighs, but eight quid it saves. She shows her pass. Her husband nods and holds out her cardigan sleeves so she can slip her arms in and warm up. The driver asks them which stop; there are two in their village. The second one, they say. He is a foreigner, the lady notes as they sit down, for no discernible reason. At the rear of the bus a ma

Approaching the A-Z, Uncertainly

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Fabulous mug found via Pinterest: https://twitter.com/gaelgreene In April a chunk of the blog-populace play a game called the A-Z Challenge. Everyday but not Sundays we write posts that follow the alphabet: a 26 day commitment. Some prepare in advance and I am in the other group. All groups do their best to visit and engage with as many other bloggers as is feasible. This year although I cannot commit to a topic- it's just not how I like to work- I have decided that my game rules are to open a dictionary to the relevant letter, close my eyes and point. Those words will be the title and starting point for each of the alphabet days. That should be just enough structure to keep the task in hand and not let it smother me. The right kind of uncertainty. Although, what happens if I pick a naughty word? (Laughs first, thinks second.) Errrmmmm…. (Thinks again as though checking a sum.) I shall daintily misspell it, not because I fear to offend but because I prefer no

A Sky Painted Flat

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Today's path is not complicated. It follows flowering lanes, between the bell hyacinths and the bluebell leaves. It pilots under a sky painted flat, with cameo ware cloud. It loops the cool grass in the field where the wind blows over badger bones, where vivid slime grows in the stream overflow and daisies tinge pink at the petal tips. Buzzards wing thermals and the cattle are sat, chewing. Dog runs, dip dyed in mud. And the evening is straightforward too, is routine. A drive across Plymouth as the daylight fades and neon softly flickers. Small groups of people stop to communicate. One here holds a pint glass, another, a bag from the takeaway counter. The air has a tarmac earthiness: tangs of tyre rubber and buttery garlic. ~ 110,625 words make up The Novel so far. Working on Chapter Nine out of ten. End in sight! But I fell asleep over my laptop this week. Much energy expended. It makes one jittery. It has resulted in a thick cough and a thin delirium. The end is

Black Belt Trials: Round One

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Not quite a full set here, but a good photo moment with a dry sky! Ate a falafel sandwich under a Church Road bus shelter, watching hail bounce. Between hail showers we sat outside; the sun blazed but sometimes it rained too. It was exhausting: taking off a coat, a scarf, a jacket, rolling up the wool trousers, the shirt sleeves, and swiftly reassembling it all, shivering, and repeat, repeat, repeat. A small cough flourished. It was a Bristol pre-grading day. Twelve of our students were there to be studied, amongst the nervous batch of 100 or so. The question was not pass or fail, though that's how they felt. The question was, are they ready? If they could do better, then try again would not (it should not) be a negative. We should remember all that disappointment can bring: the priceless grit of perseverance, how it lines the path to a destination of deeper import: but it still hurts to hear it. Sometimes philosophy must be augmented with a hug. While we all waited, un