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Tuesday 1 March 2011

Thing to do today: scout around.

I was never a scout - they didn't have girl scouts in those days, rats - but I was a Brownie and a Girl Guide. Well, it was probably my only opportunity to dance round a truly GIANT toadstool without recourse to hallucinogenic stimulation.

Seize the day, I say.

To scout means to search for some thing, or perhaps some information. Football clubs scout for new talent (if you want to be spotted then Sunday Football is the place to be, I understand), and armies scout out the enemy.

The word scout is from the Old French word ascouter, to listen to, and from the Latin auscultāre meaning to listen to someone else's insides thumping and squishing and creaking and gurgling.
Weren't the Romans lucky to have a word for that?

Actually, we've borrowed it, though we've changed it slightly to auscultate.
So if you fancy listening to your friends' dinners squishing round in their stomachs, that's what you'll be doing.

After all, there's no accounting for taste.

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