Saturday Rave: a talking shop.

On this day in 1938 The League of Nations unanimously outlawed...

Well, can you guess? 

Let me (like a politician) be absolutely clear: in an international organisation set up to maintain world peace, an issue had been discussed by various of the world's leaders. Then the most experienced and skilled diplomats had made the most careful possible choice of words to ensure that the resolution was clear (or, of course, not).

In this case it was clear. Completely and utterly transparent.

Everything that persuasion in the form of language could do had been done, and everyone (well, everyone who had bothered to join The League of Nations and hadn't subsequently gone off in a huff, anyway) was agreed.

On this day in 1938 The League of Nations unanimously outlawed 'intentional bombing of civilian populations.

It's enough to make you weep.

Word To Use Today: league. This word comes from the Old French ligue, from the Italian liga, and before that from the Latin ligāre, to bind.

Word To Use Today: quinquereme

A quinquereme, as I'm sure you know, is a Roman ship propelled by oars arranged in five levels.

My Collins dictionary helpfully points out that these oars were on each side of the ship, which is certainly true, but has left me wondering whether this was entirely a good thing. It meant the ship could travel in a straight line rather than in constant frantic circles, but then a quinquereme was an extremely nasty thing to have bearing down on you with a view to sinking your own ship.



I may have just solved the problem of naval warfare.

So what use is the word quinquereme to us nowadays?

None whatsoever, as far as I can see, except for the sheer pleasure of saying it.

If you know the beginning of John Masefield's poem Cargoes, and can murmur Quinquireme* of Nineveh from distant Ophir as you go about your day then every hour will surely shimmer with voluptuous joy...

...and quite possibly get you your own seat on the train, too.

Word To Use Caressingly Today: quinquereme. This word comes from the Latin quinquerēmis, from quinque, five, plus rēmus. oar.

*That's how Masefield spells it. I like it, too, personally.

A growing rage: a rant.

Look, growing something and developing it are different things.

Growing happens all by itself. Yes, it may be that someone provides the conditions for the growth to happen, as with turnips, or dahlias, or children, but the actual growth happens as if by magic.

The same sort of thing occurs with population growth. Obviously individuals are helping that happen, but the population as a whole doesn't have that particular intention because a population can't have an intention.

Developing something, on the other hand, is what happens when you take deliberate steps to make something get bigger, or smaller, or more refined, or more profitable.

So, please, stop talking about growing a business.

You develop a business in growing mangelworzels.

Okay?

Word To Use Today: develop. This word comes from the Old French developer, which means, delightfully, to unwrap.

Nuts and Bolts: hendiadys.

No, it's all right, this is easy. You've been using hendiadys more or less all your life: hendiadys is just the clever name for it.

Hendiadys basically comes about when, instead of using one word for a thing and another word to describe it, as in:

 the dinner was sitting in a pool of greasy gravy 

you join the two words together with an and, tweak one of them a bit, and say: 

the dinner was sitting in a pool of grease and gravy.

That's more or less all there is to it, really. 

Jolly powerful and effective it can be, too.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.

Poor Ophelia!

Nuts and Bolts: hendiadys. This word is a Latinised form of the Greek phrase hen dia duoin, which means one through two.

Thing To Do Or Be Today: flash.

Are you flash? If you've got it, do you flaunt it?

Do you display your roll of bank notes at every opportunity, or brandish your super-platinum Amex card in the most public way possible?

Do you have a personalised number plate?

Do you drive your car lying down?

Are your shoes bitterly uncomfortable? 

Does your neck ache from the weight of the gold hanging round it?

No?

Well, you'll just have to rely on flashing past someone at speed, or having a flash of genius, won't you?

I suppose I've got a chance of the former if I can spot a very very old person going for a walk.

Thing To Do Or Be Today: flash. This word started off meaning to rush in the way a flash flood rushes; but where it came from before that is a mystery.

Spot the Frippet: mandolin.

I once tried to borrow a ukulele for a concert performance, but because of some confusion (probably mine, quite honestly) when it arrived, a week before my big spot, it turned out to be a mandolin.

So I had to learn to play the mandolin. I think I did quite well for someone who'd only been playing a week, but of course it wasn't very good - and thank heavens for that, because I only knew one piece and if I'd been asked for an encore I'd have been sunk.

Finding a musical mandolin around the place is unlikely to be easy, but hearing one is no further away than YouTube:

Happy, now? Surely everyone must be who's listened to that.

Anyway, the reason why mandolins are in my mind is because at the weekend we had luncheon guests and for them I made a flan topped with a spiral of sweet potato shavings arranged on their edges to look like a big orange rose. I had to make the sweet potato shavings with a potato peeler, and, boy, did I miss having a mandolin.

No, not to amuse me as I laboured away, but to slice the vegetables:



One of these mandolins is surely spottable in a kitchen or kitchen shop near you. Or perhaps a restaurant might oblige by giving you a glimpse of theirs.

The question, though, is, why have a musical instrument and a vegetable slicer got the same name?

You really want to know, too, don't you?

Spot the Frippet: mandolin (or mandoline if you prefer). This word comes from the Italian mandolino, diminutive of mandolo, lute, from the Greek pandoura, which is a three-stringed instrument. As for its connection with the vegetable slicer, everyone is curious but baffled. The most convincing idea (to me) is that the name was first given to a wire-type slicer (like an egg-slicer) and the name was transferred from there; but some say that the early mandolins were held against the body and the action of using them was very like strumming a musical mandolin.

Sunday Rest: gorpcore. Word Not To Use Today

Last week we were recoiling in appalled horror from normcore; this week we lurch, protesting bitterly, out of gorpcore's sticky reach.

(For those so far innocent of these horrible words, they both describe fashion trends. (And I'm sorry to say that between normcore and gorpcore there was, inevitably applecore (ouch!) which involved dressing up like a middle-aged Apple executive.).)

Now the main problem with the word gorpcore is that it's really very ugly indeed. The second problem is that most of us won't have a clue what a gorp is. The third problem is that even if you do, it's not going to help much.

Gorp stands for Good Old Raisins and Peanuts.

And what has that to do with fashion? It could be a hat trimming, possibly (though inconveniently liable to attract sea gulls, I would have thought).

Gorpcore's actual connection to fashion is, thankfully, less direct. You eat gorp when hiking or camping, and gorpcore involves wearing clothes associated with striding through the Great Outdoors. This will probably involve padded jackets, walking boots, fleece, and rucksacks.

If you want to do the fashion thing really properly then Prada is selling a rucksack at the moment for £1200.

Luckily I already have a rucksack. I think it's in the loft somewhere. 

Is turquoise nylon in?

Sunday Rest: gorpcore. But you already know from where this word slithered into sorry existence.