Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

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

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.

[ 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...

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

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

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

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