This blogging platform is very limited and that's an irritation quite often.
But some of my favorite watercolorists used a basic palette and working within those constraints made the artists concerned more creative.
This blogging platform is very limited and that's an irritation quite often.
But some of my favorite watercolorists used a basic palette and working within those constraints made the artists concerned more creative.
I'm reading a Lingo: Language Spotter's Guide, by Gaston Dorren.
(Aside: I think we word spotters should be called worders.)
I like the book very much. It taught me a word I've been missing lately. It's from Luxembourgish.
Verkënnen - "to gradually experience the effects of old age in body and mind".
Isn't that rather beautiful?
PS Verkënnen means something related but a bit different in German and Dutch.
While I think of it:
"Of course I won't marry you!", she bridled unengagingly.
A Croaker is similar to a Tom Switfie but with a verb instead of an adverb.
The form gets its name from this example, which was invented by Mr and Mrs Bongartz.
"I'm dying", Tom croaked.
Croakers seem hard to invented but I came up with these.
"The divorce was very costly!", Tom exclaimed.
"Me, addicted to cocaine?", Tom snorted.
"I've got a red-hot tip for the 2:30", Tom asserted.
"Smile for the camera!", Tom snapped.
"This soft toy is totally under my control", Tom ranted.
Tom Swifties are a form of humorous wordplay. For example:
Go to the rear of the ship at once", said Tom sternly.
"Who left the toilet seat down?", asked Tom peevishly.
Here's a few I came up with:
"I marked your answer wrong", said Tom crossly.
"Life itself is a game of chance", explained Tom winsomely.
"One day all this will be yours", Tom stated willingly.
"Calculate the average for yourself!", snarled Tom meanly.
"They insist on keeping me in overnight", Tom snapped impatiently.
"I think I've sprained my ankle", muttered Tom disjointedly.
"I prefer to live in an apartment", answered Tom flatly.
"I'm counting how many pots of tea you lot make", Tom pointed out brutally.
"What's for afters?", asked Tom sweetly.
"Sorry, your answer was correct after all", Tom remarked.
Cod: Found in compounds such as: 'Codwrangle', 'Codratic Seaquation", etc.
Crab: Seas.
Crevette: Posh necktie.
Eel: Dickensian: See cure.
Fish: Dickensian: Aspiration.
Herring: Sounds like.
Lobster: Lember of a lob.
Mussel: Likely to do well on eBay.
Plaice: Pretentious dramas.
Ray: Limp cheer.
Scampi: Deceitful pee.
Shad: Abbr. She formerly had.
Trout: Doh reh.
Whelk: Informal: No thanks expected.
Whiting: A form of communication.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti
Refused to use his potty.
When he began scribbling on the ceiling
His parents considered that more appealing.
John Hull wrote "Touching the Rock”.
If you want to feel blindness, read this book. We can never understand anything by covering our eyes.
On a hot day, the door being open
A Robin flew briefly into my kitchen.
Perched on the back of a chair.
I froze. From where I sat its legs were so slender
That I wondered how they could support even that tiny weight.
When my Robin glanced around, I even (stupidly),
Thought it might see me as a friend.
And not be afraid as it flew away.
Peeing in a corner,
A cat.
Or a Buddhist.
Recently I've had a bad spell of Meralgia paresthetica (from? Greek meros=thigh + algos=pain + para=around + aistheme=I feel. I guessed some bits but that's the idea.)
It's a very strange and uncomfortable sensation on the outside of the thigh. For me, it's like having something very heavy and clunky in your pocket, always weighing on the thigh, not exactly hurting -- but sort of -- even though the pocket is completely empty.
It's caused by a particular nerve being pinched as it radiates from the spinal chord to the thigh itself. I've had this from time to time since the 70s but it flares up now and then.
Poor me. But then I read that Sigmund Freud had the same condition, so I am in illustrious company.
I couldn't resist this.
Munchday
Cheeseday
Wafflesday
Thirsty
Friesday
Snacksday
Bunday
Oh Mrs Rib and Mr Dust
How shall we know who we can trust?
When the gardener standing by
Has set a trap for you and I.
This poem brings together the dream marriage scene from Roy Andersson's "You, the Living" and an ancient legend and ballad "Thomas the Rhymer".
Last night at sunset I saw a beautiful iridescent cloud, the best example I have ever witnessed.
The photo was taken from my mobile phone and gives no idea at all really, but I hope you can just about see that the shiny cloud in the middle displays a range of bright pastel colours, rather like mother-of-pearl.
These clouds are quite rare. They are caused by sunlight shining through clouds whose water droplets (or ice crystals) are all the same size in any small part of the cloud but vary in size between one part of the cloud and another. They act a bit like an oil-slick on a puddle.
Atmospheric optics are an interest of mine. The most familiar example is a rainbow, but there are many others. Sun dogs are commoner than rainbows, but less conspicuous so many people have never noticed one. But as soon as you become aware of them, perhaps just from a single example, you learn to recognize the cloud conditions when it's worth trying to spot a sun dog.
Here is a gallery of remarkable photos of iridescent clouds.
Leaves, why look back
Shouldn't we look forward?
Homesickness.When the head stuck out of the glacier
There was consternation
But looking into the records carefully preserved
Carefully preserved by the bureaucracy of the time.
They had an inkling of who it might be
So they sent down in to the valleys for ideas.
After time and search they found me.
Did I want to come up there or them to me?
They thought it was my father. I ascended. He was so young.
A very mild man
So polite
Always drank the weakest beer and
never bitter.
As far as we know it
No serious poet
Ever wrote a clerihew.
Or very few.
a fly buzzing around
with no idea you exist.
summer visitor
Here is my attempt at translation into Anglo Saxon.
cume drohte mid mec healsgebedda
be geon burn glowendee and ælfscíenee
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