Memory is an odd thing. And linguistic memory is perhaps as odd as any.
I know I should remember the name of the flowers in the photo as I’ve grown plenty over the years, but every time I see them I have to sort through and reject a few other words that come to mind first.
They definitely aren’t coelacanths.
And I’m fairly sure they have nothing to do with Clytemnestra.
Continue reading “word association”
Well, not really in a pickle, as the spices in the picture are not yet even tied up in muslin. And, anyway, they were to be used to make chutney.
Which leads me on to wonder what the difference between chutney and pickle actually is. The top results in Google don’t help much; I think they are biased towards the States, where things like gherkins, which are preserved without cooking, are classed as pickles, while vegetables and fruits cooked in vinegar with spices are called chutney or relish.
Continue reading “in a pickle”
It’s quicker and easier to look things up online than in the weighty volumes of the Oxford Universal Dictionary over on the bookshelf, so I’ve just found the definition of “apostrophe” on dictionary .com and it pretty much sums up this blog:
a digression in the form of an address to someone not present […]
After all, you who are reading this are not present, and that first paragraph is itself a digression: I intended to start here at the Old School House –
– and continue by commenting that when I wrote yesterday’s post apostrophising and being (dia)critical of the local school leavers’ fête and the sad inadequacies of modern education, I had forgotten that my original idea was to write about St Swithin’s Day, which had passed unremarked the day before.
Continue reading “things forgotten”
A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to an article in the Guardian with the title Unlike life and the universe, Europe has no simple answer.
I’m not sure whether Europe itself has a simple answer, but the official referendum blurb that came through the door recently shows a question that can be answered very simply:
Should we remain in the EU or leave the EU?
That’s a very definite Yes from me. Or perhaps a very definite No.
Yesterday’s photo was a single daisy: one of the first flowers many of us learn to love, and one that tends to be associated with natural simplicity.
Today’s picture – also from my mother’s garden – is a rather more complex scenario, but one that appears to be laden with budding possibilities:
don't confuse the narrator 