Tuesday, December 29, 2009

map, rug, oracle


Posted by PicasaThe map of The Grove, like The Grove itself, was covered with snow during the recent wintry conditions. It is always good to know where you are.
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As I pass a row of cottages, which give directly on to the pavement, a front door opens, a hand holding a rug reaches out and shakes the rug. A little cloud of dust rises. The rug quivers and is gone. The door closes, and leaves behind a sense of mystery, a fairy story unwritten.
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For a long time the word verification letter, which I was encountering were disappointing, clumsy without any hidden sense or curious harmony that I could discern. Then, suddenly, in the last hour or so WV is back to form. Like some sort of oracle it comes up in quick succession with "weast", "mecism" and "knonst".

9 comments:

The Crow said...

Good heavens! You've found a map to my house, also covered in frost.

:)

Unknown said...

Hey, Crow, I didn't know you lived in The Grove. I know there is a crow there, but it never ocurred to me that it was The Crow. Funny thing is I haven't yet written my post. The photograph was posted by mistake, ahead of time. Cheers.

The Crow said...

I know. I was out scouting my usual places for news (we crows do that a lot) and found your premature photo. Loved it and was inspired to write that bit of silliness.

Speaking of interesting WVs, the one for this response is 'eintinge.' Ein is one in the German language, isn't it? So, what, then is a tinge?

:)

Roderick Robinson said...

It's as if you stage-managed your post: contemplate this incomplete picture and I, the all powerful blogmeister, will eventually bring the answers you so desperately seek. And with them, intellectual peace.

The temptation is to ascribe meanings to WV words (And it's only a step and a jump away with the one I'm presently looking at - "cromp"). But there could be a more sinister side to all this. Google, the ubermensch to Blogger, is a huge successful organisation and arouses suspicions in many. But by scattering these literary titbits in front of us and encouraging us to trawl through the resonances ("weast", for instance, echoing "weasand" even if I've forgotten the reference) Google is out to charm us. Should we allow this to happen?

"Tinge" is of course a legitimate word in English ("To impart a slight smell, taste or other quality to something" - who'd have thought it was that versatile?) but there's more fun to be had in continuing the German connection which means hardening the "ing" and sounding the final e, leading to something delicate and unimportant.

The Crow said...

HA!

I had to read your last sentence/paragraph twice, BB, but I got it.

Double HA! (It was really, really, really funny.)

;D

The Crow said...

Sorry, Plutarch. I forgot whose blog I was reading for a moment; thought I was yanking BB's chain at his blog.

:)

Unknown said...

BB is always welcome to address the crowds from my balcony. My problem is that I still don't get "eintinge" with a hard "ing" and the final "e" sounded.
Current is WV is "flati. I yhink I must be a bit of a flati.

The Crow said...

Plutarch, think 'thingie', drop the 'h'. Means something precious, itsy-bitsy, of little importance, name-for-which is either inappropriate used in public, or has been forgotten (if it were ever known.)

At least, that's my take on it - which could be entirely incorrect.

:)

Roderick Robinson said...

I like the underlying hint of a West Yorkshire Mussolini haranguing the mob from your balcony. Not that I deserve even that much applause. Ding (no final e) is German for "thing" and somehow the VW had coalesced into "a thing" or "one thing" in my mind. Which, left in German, sounds slightly Tinkerbellish, hence the conceit. I really (see, my mind's failing) should bring to an end these manic darts into the blogworld and concentrate on the novel which jogs along at about 1000 words a day if I strip out the days I'm absolutely forbidden to write it (eg, Christmas).

Reading one of the CAD poems in my unexpected Christmas present I said to myself - there's something familiar here. It was a rhyming sonnet. Briefly I felt legitimised.