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Tuesday 17 December 2013

Thing To Do Today But Only In A Good Way: hum.

So, what will you hum?

If you're not musical, then a dead steady hum will be the least likely thing to get you hit over the head with a frozen turkey. The noise will still annoy people, but you can pretend it's coming from the boiler, or the fridge.

But there are other sorts of hum. In fact, more or less everything is humming (feverishly busy) in these weeks leading up to Christmas. We're all getting and spending like mad, and if you're in New Zealand or Australia then you may be forced to hum in a different way, for there to hum is to scrounge.

That sort of humming is bad enough, but humming is even worse in Britain, where if something is humming there's a fair chance that means it smells so bad you can detect it at some distance.

I'll leave you with something much much sweeter:

 
Happy humming!
 
Thing To Do Today But Only In A Good Way: hum. This word has been around in English since the 1300s, and is an imitation of the sound it makes.
 
A hummingbird's hum is made by its wings, which it flaps at an incredible sixty to two hundred times a second.


6 comments:

  1. I love hummingbirds.
    We are lucky enough to get them for a couple of months here during the summer. I can't get enough of watching them.
    I am so envious of that fellow in the video. What a delight to have so many little visitors!
    I don't envy making all that sugar water every day though! :)

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    1. It must be like living in the middle of a Disney cartoon. In a good way, natch.
      I envy you the hummingbirds very much indeed. I have to make do with the occasional hummingbird hawk moth. Still, they're magical, too.

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  2. "Interesting" Ed fact: I can't hum, because it makes my nose itch.

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    Replies
    1. Ah. That's a sign of genius. Or something.

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    2. Genius, or congested nasal passages - I can never remember which ...

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