Nuts and Bolts: Herve-Bazin's punctuation.

 Jean-Pierre Hervé-Bazin (1911 - 1996) was a writer (and French, obviously). He invented an almost completely phonetic way of spelling the French language (which is actually a sensible idea: if you think English spelling is bizarre...) and as part of this system he invented six new punctuation marks or points d'intonation.

These weren't actually anything much to do with intonation, more to do with clarity. This one, for instance:

makes the shape of a heart (more or less) and implies love. There were also symbols for acclamation, authority, doubt, conviction and irony.

Sadly, in that time of typewriters and lead type new punctuation marks were never going to catch on.

Still, now we have emojis:

illustration by Google - https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-emoji/tree/v2018-08-10-unicode11/svg/emoji_u2764.svg, Apache License 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76925285

 so the principle has a life, even if the symbol itself didn't.

Thing To Use Today: a question mark? The word question comes from the Latin word quaerere, to seek.

Thing Not To Be Today: snarky.

 Snarky is such a brilliant word. It's not been around that long (1906, originally, but it faded away and then re-emerged in the very late 1900s. There was also a slightly older snarky (1866) which meant to snort).

The reason this word is brilliant is that it's so obvious what it means. The sn- beginning suggests it as a cousin in meaning to sneer and snipe and snarl; the -narky bit reminds us of the word nark meaning annoying or quarrelsome; and altogether there never was a word that suggested more plainly a cobbled together version of sarcastic and nasty.

There are sources online which confirm this sarcastic + nasty derivation, too.

Strictly speaking they're probably wrong, but hey...

Thing Not To Be Today: snarky. This word comes originally from snark, to find fault or to nag. There are similar words in Low German and Frisian. When the word re-emerged in 1997 it meant hostile, knowing and contemptuous. 

I suspect that this new snarky really is a combination of sarcastic and nasty/nark, and that this is an example of convergent evolution. But I can't imagine how anyone could prove it.

The creature in the Hunting of the Snark (Lewis Caroll, 1876) is entirely unconnected - unless it put the sound of the word into people's minds as an inspiration.

Anyway, let's not be snarky. Let's be kind, eh?

Spot the Frippet: something fake.

 Is fake the word of the 2020s?

Well, I hope not, because I'm not even sure what fake means any more. If you have a comb that looks like tortoiseshell, for instance, then you'd probably rather it was fake rather than made of a real tortoise. In this case, fake is a good thing.

It's the same with leopard skin and all kinds of fur. (There was a report last year about some fake fur coats that turned out to be genuine fur because apparently they were cheaper to make. Mind you, the genuine fur would have been bio-degradable, which leaves us in a real ecological muddle.)

And how about fake house plants? Are they pretending to be real? Even when they're kept in a windowless bathroom?

And fake eyelashes?

Diana Dors. Photo by Anefo

And is there any news that isn't fake from someone's point of view?

Fake started off meaning intended to deceive and then changed its meaning to similar in form and function but not intended to deceive; and at the moment seems to mean something which I personally don't wish to be true. 

Well...

...this is going to be an easy spot, isn't it?

Spot the Frippet: something fake. This word started off in the 1700s as thieves' slang meaning to mug or cheat someone. It probably came through Polari from the Italian facciare, to make or do.

Sunday Rest: psychophily. Word Not To Use Today.

 There's a strong literary tradition of women falling under the spell of truly terrible men. There's Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights; Mr and Mrs Grimethorpe in Clouds of Witness (whoops, that's two couples from the Yorkshire Moors, I'd better think of someone from somewhere else); and Billy Sykes and Nancy from Oliver Twist.

Are these all, as you'd expect, examples of psychophily?

Nope.

Sunday Rest: psychophily. This word describes the process of a plant being pollinated by a butterfly. The psycho- but comes from the Greek word psukhē, spirit or breath, and the -phily bit comes from the other Greek word philos, loving.

The symbol of the goddess Psyche (a girl who was supposed to marry a terrible man (but didn't)) is a pair of butterfly wings.

photo by Aaditya C Deodhar

Saturday Rave: Sonnet 98: From you I have been absent in the Spring, by William Shakespeare

 This sonnet has been dismissed for being simple, and it's true that apart from the reference to Saturn (a traditionally gloomy God) there's nothing here to confuse anyone. It has a single message: it may be lovely out there, but I can't enjoy it if you're not with me.

In some ways this is the perfect poem for our time - except that over the last year most of us seem to have realised that we are made of sterner stuff than this. And there's Zoom, too, of course.

Still, even the receipt of a poem can be extremely cheering, can't it?

From you have I been absent in the Spring,

When proud pied April dress'd in all his trim

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue

Could make me any Summer's story tell.

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose;

They were but sweet, but figures of delight,

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet seem'd it Winter still, and, you away,

As with your shadow I with these did play.

But then things don't have to be complicated, do they? And the line Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose has to be one of the most sumptuous in the whole language.

Word To Use Today: vermilion. This word comes from the Old French vermeillon, from the Latin vermiculus, which describes both insects of the genus Kermes and the red dye which comes from them. Vermiculus means little worm.

Well, the whole thing was lovely until then, wasn't it?

Word To Use Today: treacle.

 Treacle is delicious, but is it bad for you?

It's basically sugar, after all, whether it's black:

By Badagnani - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4129522

or gold:

photo by Ivan Trpkov

(Yes, some people call this golden version golden syrup, but round here it's treacle - and, after all, everyone makes treacle puddings of the stuff!)

So is it potentially deadly?

Not necessarily. In fact, on occasion it can be life-saving.

Word To Use Today: treacle. Apart from the sweet sticky stuff, treacle also means antidote for poison. The Old French form of the word is triacle, and the Latin form is thēriaca, which has the antidote meaning.

Vaccine news: a rant.

 There's a large electronic noticeboard on the main road into town. It's one where the letters are made out of dots, rather like the ones on motorways:

The motorway signs usually say things like:

queue after jcn 16

but this one said:

over book vaccines given 

(I think it probably referred to my home county of Hertfordshire in England.)

over book vaccines given  ?

What did this mean? Had there been some unfortunate mix-up somewhere?

It wasn't until I'd been round the next roundabout that I realised that instead of the book, I should have read 600K.

Abbreviation To Use Today: k. In the SI system of units, kilo- denotes a thousand (as in kilogram, which is aa thousand grams) and sometimes k is used in a number instead of writing 000. 600 000 = 600K. Kilo- comes from the Greek khilioi, a thousand.