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Here is a collection of notes to various really, really obscure references and puns and other stuff in the essays that, if either of us had a life, I wouldn't be writing and you wouldn't be reading. -Enjoy! RHB |
| 1 Innocuos Calices et Amicam Vatibus Herbam
Vimque datam Folio —— Thor. de Pœt.
Planta Beata, Decus Terrarum, Munus Olympi!
Idem.
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1 The head office at the time was Mullard House (with its main entrance in Torrington Place) which building is now part of University College London and home to UCL's Department of Electronics & Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering 2 GPO: In Britain at that time the Post Office (the General Post Office) ran the phones. Indeed a few streets over from us the Post Office Tower was a major communications hub (not to mention being the tallest building in London, famously referred to as the Post Master General’s latest erection. I’m not sure why*)
‡ Or was the saying "qui s'excuse s'accuse"?†
3 In a name-droppy aside, the humour of this for me being intensified by my having dated one of the numerous Heal offspring for a time.
4 To eff and blind, to use strong expletives, to swear continuously
1943 M. HARRISON Reported Safe Arrival 31 They'd eff and blind till yer ear-'oles started ter frizzle.
1963 P. WEST Mod. Novel II. i. 142 On it goes, the livid effing-and-blinding.
Eff, variant of EF, name of the letter F, euphemistically representing FUCK v. 2, 3.]
(Used as an expletive on its own account, as a milder alternative to the full form of the word fuck, or else as a euphemistic report of an actual use of the full word.)
1950 HEMINGWAY Across River & into Trees ix. 78 ‘Eff Florence,’ the Colonel said.
Blind, used in vulgar imprecations, as blind me! Cf. BLIMEY int.
1890 FARMER Slang I. 230/1 Blimey, a corruption of ‘blind me!’; an expression little enough understood by those who constantly have it in their mouths. 1923 E. O'NEILL Hairy Ape v. 47 There's a 'ole mob of 'em like 'er, Gawd blind 'em!
Blimey
1922 JOYCE Ulysses 305 God blimey if she aint a clinker... Blimey it makes me kind of bleeding cry.
---culled from the OED 5 I know that the OED says this is an erroneous form of 'Antipodal'---but I say sod them, and sod the alternative form of 'Antipodean'---which anyway ought to be 'Antipodian' ([Antipodean irreg. f. ANTIPODE-S + -AN; perh. after European, but not analogous, a better form being the obs. ANTIPODIAN.]) so there!!
* Though this might help explain it... and then again, when you start looking around London at, say, the so-called Gherkin you begin to suspect that there is a certain amount of skyscraper envy going on here
† That note isn't numbered because I suddenly thought that not all people would get the reference, and was too lazy to go through and renumber. | | | 1 For example:
 | | | 1 See here.
2 See Official Report of the Dig at the Front Room Site, 2021 in the 'Side Project additional 2" section or here.
3 Showing my age. Time was when a movie was screened over and over and patrons could enter at any point and watch the movie starting at any point in its story-line watch to the end, then maybe there'd be some shorts, and finally see the beginning through to the point at which they would say something like "this was where we came in" and then leave, or not...
From Corsicana Daily Sun, Corsicana Texas 5 december-1935.
And the exception that, if not proving*, certainly illustrates the rule:
*
My misuse of 'proving' is absolutely, definitely intentional: see Proofing Ground.
Finally (mid Octoberish) all done!
| | | 1 The plural of 'footnote' surely ought, out of common decency, to be 'feetnote': the word 'footnotes' being so predictably sad, boring and, quite frankly, poopy.
2 The fact that they normally call themselves by their initials, NOAA, and that they apparently pronounce this 'Noah' tells you all you need to know about their attitude towards life, liberty and the pursuit of rain; not to mention the quality of their sense of humour.
3 For example there is the ever-popular 'Yellow Snow Warning' which rather surprisingly isn't to avoid eating it.
4 One study, by Halliday et al ("Meteorite Impacts on Humans and Buildings." in the journal Nature, 1985) calculates the rate of impacts to humans as 0.0055 per year, or 1 event every 180 years.
5 That last was a joke for research chemists, and the like sort of person, and was very funny.
6 Actually an 'NPA' covers more than just heat, rendering it even less useful. A list of the things it covers can be found at www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/prod..o...d
Oh! Damn!
...Damn!*
7 Which I pretty obviously haven't.
* Damn! I failed!! You'll still have to go to the bloody site!
| | | 1 It is, according to the local paper, a quote stolen from Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest, an 1851 novel by East Dereham-born writer George Borrow, in which he includes the following description of Norwich: "...a fine old city, truly, is that, view it from whatever side you will; but it shows best from the east, where the ground, bold and elevated, overlooks the fair and fertile valley in which it stands."
2 Broad: In the slang sense of "woman" in use by 1911, perhaps suggestive of broad hips, but it also might trace to American English abroadwife, word for a woman (often a slave) away from her husband. Earliest use of the slang word suggests immorality or coarse, low-class women. Because of this negative association, and the rise of women's athletics, the track and field broad jump (1863) was changed to the long jump c. 1967.
3 See here.
4 See here.
5 Playle ➔ Pail ➔ Bucket. Simple really. And I have actually essayed on the "other things".
6 And indeed see here.
7 Though, apparently, sometimes size does matter.
8 For all I know they may STILL be there, I haven't been that way in decades.
| | | 1 See Richard Andree: Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche (1878)
2 Quantum Entanglement
3 On the BBC, so it MUST be right
| | | 1 And actually already used in an essay 'Name's in a What?' back in 2009.
2 Naming of Parts (1942)
Henry Reed
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.
3 By Sir Harry Lauder (1936)
"Keep right on to the end of the woad,
"Keep right on to the end,
"If the way be long, let your heart be strong,
"Keep right on round the bend."
4 The forehead of the giver rapidly applied to the nose of the receiver.
The knuckles of the fist, similarly utilised.
| | | 1 Here's Wikipedia spoiling the fun.
2 As you can see here.
3 All you need to know (about life, the Universe and Everything) is here, here and
here.
And here's a cartoon I found during research:
| | | 1 The whole section between '[' and ']' was omitted from the broadcast version for reasons of length.
2 See 'Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury' by Charles Williams (who, in this case, has a lot to answer for).
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