Spot The Frippet: something orra.

 Orra is a Scots word which means odd or unmatched.

An orra man is an odd-job man.

There's something strangely sinister about a house where everything matches. Instead of presenting an honest glimpse of a life, or a portrait of a family, all the souls who live there are peeking out from behind a curtain of someone else's taste.

One can't help but wonder just what it is they're hiding.

Still, the rest of us will have no trouble finding unmatched things, whether it's a sock (the other one is probably in the washing machine) 

Very odd sock. Photo by Rion

or the last plate of the set Auntie bought us, or that perfectly good envelope that came with a birthday card, or that earring which used to be one of my favourites and you never know but the other might be caught up in something somewhere.

(This Mycenian earring probably lost its partner in the 16th century BC, or soon afterwards. Still, this one is being kept at the Louvre just in case the other one turns up.)

Mind you, you could probably do without the glove whose pair was lost on that skiing holiday. And that single chopstick...but no. That might come in useful for getting the stones out of cherries.

Something orra can still be useful and stimulating.

Well, aren't you?

Spot the Frippet: something orra. Sadly, no one knows where this word comes from, except Scotland.