meish dot org: life, unfolding

Now, I’m no linguist, and my grasp of Latin is shaky at best, but as I woke up this morning over a mug of tea, I found myself wondering whether pr0n production companies have mottos, in the style of MGM’s

Ars Gratia Artis – Art for Art’s Sake

…because if so, then surely the logical contender would be the properly conjugated (no pun intended) form of:

Copulum Gratia Copulis – Fucks for Fuck’s Sake

No?

Perhaps it sounds better to a British ear, where the phrase “for fuck’s sake” signals exasperation, in the same way as “Turn that bleeding radio off for Christ’s sake, before I smack you” or “For the love of God, where’s my fucking train?”: “For fuck’s sake! I just parked the fucking thing and now you want me to move it!”

Bloggui: Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest in blogging or blogs; boredom.

Everyone gets it sooner or later.

British English corrupting US English, what. Interesting article about language in the process of change.

How the Bee got his Knees …and other random delights of erroneous etymology.

Ten mistakes writers don’t see (but can easily fix when they do).

…the following is a list I’ll be referring to people *before* they submit anything in writing to anybody… From email messages and front-page news in the New York Times to published books and magazine articles, the 10 ouchies listed here crop up everywhere. They’re so pernicious that even respected Internet columnists are not immune.

1. Repeats
2. Flat writing
3. Empty adverbs
4. Phony dialogue
5. No-good suffixes
6. The “to be” words
7. Lists
8. Show, don’t tell
9. Awkward phrasing
10. Commas

I heard the phrase cunny-thumbed (To double one’s fist with the thumb inwards, like a woman. Also, clumsy.) today, for the first-time in ages, and it reminded me of a random thing I once knew.

The humble rabbit was once commonly known as cony, coney (yes, as in Island Baby) or cunny. This comes from the term for the genus, Oryctolagus cuniculus (or domesticated rabbit).

Unfortunately, in the nineteenth century, cunny became a slang term for a part of the female anatomy (no prizes for guessing which [meaningful look]) and the term (as applied to little furry bouncing things with twitching noses) fell out of usage.

I vaguely remember an anthopology lecturer of mine detailing a hypothesis that all taboo/slang terms grew out of the names for domesticated animals – something to do with the sound cu- (as in, yes, you know, slang term for ladies downstairs department [meaningful glance]) being also the origin for the word cow.) This is somehow related, but I can’t find any mention of it online (so it mustn’t be true.)

(Kidding.)

(Mind you, having said that, do you ever find yourself thinking, when you can’t find any trace of a person/place/thing/service which you know to exist, even after exhaustive googlsearching, that they can’t really be trying, or mustn’t be that important/neccessary etc? It’s terrible websnobbery, I know.)

There’s an interesting history of the word for, you know, downstairs [meaningful look] at the following link, but I must press upon you in no uncertain terms that the link is not safe for work and that you should very much try and avoid clicking on any of the links contained within it, or going to the root of the site because the rest of the site is not a similar semi-academic exploration of the term and probably more accurately and, *ahem* exploration of the *ahem* term. If you see what I’m saying. Anyway, the link is… no, wait, I can’t write it because then my site will get blacklisted from various touchy establishments and…*sigh* OK, well, if you really want to visit the page I’m talking about then go to your address bar and type in www then a dot, then the four letter slang term for, you know, downstairs [meaningful look], then another dot, then com, then a slash, then the downstairs [meaningful look] word again then another dot, then html. Got that? Good.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. this site. Much better, and original, to boot.

Other words and phrases I have recently enjoyed: sticker shock (you see the thing, you want the thing, you decide to buy the thing and then you see the price sticker. You go a bit white, your eyes boggle, you put it down and you walk away. Happens with houses, cars, albums, clothes, both online and offline, and it’s one of the biggest things retailers have to combat. In a weird way, it’s the main reason that things are priced at £999.99 rather than £1,000), bilk (is this why Sgt. Bilco is so named, I wonder?)

Whilst at university, I lived with a man who had a habit of going to the loo – the long trips, shall we say, rather than the short jaunts – with the light off, and leaving the door ever so slightly ajar.

Once, I walked in on him, and in embarrassment said

“Oh, gosh, sorry”

to which his voice was heard echoing from the bathroom as I hastily shut the door

“No, don’t worry, it’s OK”

I never figured out whether it was just a linguistic twist or not.

I sort of hope it was.

In the Peak District village where I lived when I was writing my Masters’ dissertation, there was a man called Mr Binns, who ran the local newsagent. Every morning, procrastinating the writing-up process, I would walk the two miles into the village to buy milk and a paper. Plopping The Guardian down on the counter, on top of copies of the local free rag (the High Peak Courier, I seem to remember) and next to see-through buckets of sour chews and chocolate cigarettes, I’d get read to pay. Mr Binns would be standing behind the counter in a zip-up brown cardigan, with nicotine-stained fingers and strong grease in his hair – a cliche of himself, the character he portrayed every day. He would look at the paper, and then say slowly in a voice so gutteral and resonant and low that whales halfway across the atlantic would spin around and rush towards landlocked Derbyshire to mate,

“That’ll be forty-five pee, my little angel”

My little angel.
My darling cherub.
My duck.
My little love.
My little darling.
My flower.
My darling petal.

Every day, the same exchange; every day a new variation on the over-familiar.

I was buying a paper, for Pete’s sake. He probably didn’t even know my name, and yet every day I was his darling treasure or similar. But my heart didn’t skip a beat when he said it. My knees didn’t turn to jelly when he called me those things. It didn’t mean a thing, except friendliness and good customer service.

But that’s the thing about regional endearments – contexts change. Say any of those common endearments in London and you’d get a slap in the kisser, but in Derbyshire, as in other parts of the North, they make perfect contextual sense.

This random story is inspired by the news yesterday that Tesco has banned staff from using local terms for madam and sir, following a customer complaint in Lancashire, after she was called dear by a checkout assistant.

One of the joys of living in this country is the wealth of regionality and regional identity that still exists, despite overpopulation, flexible roots and shifting social environments. Just like in the cab last night, I may be from London, but my northern affiliation shows when I’m tired and happy. When I spend a lot of time with someone who has a strong regional accent, I’ll end up subconscioulsy picking bits up, the odd word, an inflection. All those things, those aspects of communication and behaviour are part of my culture, my country, but represent different contexts.

In South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, I’ve got no problem with being greeted by “ey up, me duck” but strangely the London luv makes my ears bleed. I like being hen in Glasgow and pet in Newcastle, and even chuck in Liverpool occasionally. I like the regional variations in accent, custom, culture, vocabulary. I like the familiarity of regional customer service. But when the fishmonger puts his hand on your arse, you know it’s gone too far.

When I was growing up, my relations (mostly northern) had a whole range of bizarre endearments for me, depending on circumstance and geography. Treasure. Chicken. Sausage. Petal. Hinny. Pumpkin Pie. Letterbox Mouth (don’t ask).

As years fall past, the familiar endearments used become more London and cosmopolitan, but less specific and tender. Foxy. Gorgeous. Darling. Sweetie. Honey. More words, less meaning, perhaps. How very Ab Fab.

What’s your pet name? What do you like to be called? What do you loathe? What do you call your partner/friends? What makes you squirm when someone calls you it?

I’ve got to agree with Zoe Williams about people abbreviating words when sending text messages. It smacks of laziness, and besides, there’s no real need when so many new mobile phones have predictive text input. So using text abbreviations now is an affectation – and a rather droll one, at that.

There are only a handful of people who send me messages containing strange TXT shorthand – 2morrow, l8r, CU nxt wk and so on – and it bugs the shit out of me, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of.

What I do know is this – I usually take as much effort in replying to them as they have in messaging me in the first place – i.e. very little.

My other friends, however, the ones who know how to make 160 characters speak volumes, get the replies they deserve – full of care and attention and proper spelling.

While we’re on the subject, can I just point out something else about text messages that I don’t get? Those little books – The little bk of txt msgs and whatnot, which retail on cardshop counters for £1.99 and contain lots of little messages, chat up lines, insults and jokes you can put into your phone and send to all your friends.

The mind boggles. What lack of originality must a person have in order to require a book telling them what to send to their own friends?

I’m very much looking forward to seeing “The little book of postcards” for next time I go on holiday – full of such gems as “weather is here, wish you were lovely” and the like. *Yawn*

And another thing. I think I need to get myself a predictive text plugin for my boyfriend – I seem to spend an awful lot of time these last couple of weeks going:

Me: “Honey, could you get me the….the…”
Him: “The what?”
Me: “The…thingy…the…you know…the…the telly guide”
Him: [looks at me strangely] “Right. Where is it?”
Me: “It’s in the….the….”
Him: “Where? The kitchen? The living room? Where?”
Me: “…the….the bedroom! Aha!”
Him: “Sure.” [looks at me strangely]

Bless him, he’s trying so hard. I think I need a….a…you know…one of those things….a… bugger, you know what I mean…a….ah yes, I remember. A holiday.

In 1996 I was living in a tiny community in Bolivia, doing fieldwork for my dissertation. That�s another story in itself � if not a whole book � but not for now. This story concerns itself with learning valuable cultural lessons, dancing on the roof of the world, and the reason I will never have a second helping of potatoes ever again as long as I live.

During the second month of my fieldwork, as the local foreigner, I was invited to the inaugural blessing of a new tree nursery in a tiny hamlet about four hours drive into the mountains called Inka Katurapi. With foreign aid, the village of about fifty people was experimenting with planting trees to prevent harmful erosion of the topsoil.

I didn�t think they were going to feed me when I got there so before I left my fieldwork site, I had a hearty Andean breakfast, consisting of potatoes. Now, potatoes in the UK come in three basic types: new, medium and baking. Potatoes in Bolivia however come in about 39 variations, with different colours and sizes and even tastes. Yes, amazingly, all potatoes do not taste the same. Anyway, beans (or even potatoes). I scoffed about a pound of potatoes before I left the village because I figured that would last me until the next meal (whenever that was going to be).

Driving over the Andes towards the village took about a couple of hours (there was impressive scenery, there were llamas). When I got to the village, nestled high in Los Valles, the party was about to kick off. This was not a fiesta, the other typical kind of Andean celebration, which involves drinking so much chicha (maize beer) that you go blind and waking up in a pool of your own (or worse, someone else�s) vaguely maize-smelling vomit three days later limbs aching from dancing the cueca, which is basically the Bolivian equivalent of Morris dancing and involves a lot of hanky-waving. This celebration was to be a rather more staid affair. There was to be a visit to the alpaca herd, a look at the nursery, a feast and then some speeches, they told me as soon as I arrived. Woah, hang on a minute, did someone say feast? Even though I�d eaten a few hours ago, appetite in the Andes is a funny thing and a little goes a long way, so my breakfast of potatoes was still weighing heavily on my stomach. A feast sounded like something I wasn�t prepared for, in an appetite kind of way.

So off we went to look at the alpacas and then at the nursery (yawn) and then there was the feast. In the middle of a muddy field on a steep slope, the entire village of about 45 people gathered around, bringing ingredients for the picnic. One person from each family brought an aguayu (a woven cloth used as a sort of backpack, if you tie it right (ask me to demonstrate sometime)) wrapped neatly around their contribution to the feast. Laying them down in the middle of the circle, one by one, they were unfolded to display the yummy contents within.

Quick caveat: I swear I am not making this up. Everything here actually happened, and I still have the scars (mental, physical and emotional) to prove it. Oh, and the photos.

Every single person brought potatoes. Every single one. Okay, a few people had also thoughtfully brought some llahua which is a scary foaming spicy tomato and chilli sauce that looks like the kind of spit you only ever see after a long dental operation, and tastes like burning. But aside from that, potatoes and lots of them. About twenty blankets worth. That, in case you hadn’t figured it out, is a lot of potatoes.

As the village guest, I got the village chair while everyone else sat on the ground. When I moved to sit with them, the head of the village, a man who wore a symbolic whip tied diagonally over his shoulder, shouted at me and gave me a guirnalda (a stiff floral garland that fits around the neck and over the shoulders and makes it impossible to move your arms from elbows up). So I sat on the village chair, higher than everyone and feeling uncomfortable. One of the women gave me an empty tin plate and indicated that I should help myself from the blanket. I quickly cottoned on that no-one was going to start on the food before I�d at least made a token effort so I headed over to the blanket, grabbed a few smallish spuds and a bit of red-spit sauce and plonked myself back down on the chair. My plate was immediately whisked away and the next time I saw it, mere seconds later, it was piled high with potatoes of every shape and hue.

There is one kind of potato in the Andes which deserves special mention here. Its name is the ch�uño and it is pure evil. It�s basically a freeze-dried potato which starts life sort of medium-sized and juicy and via a lengthy process of freezing and thawing in the open air, becomes a small black nugget which keeps for up to three years, usually in a sack in the animal shed, and tastes rather like the insole of a particularly sweaty hiker�s boot. It�s the kind of food that could only make sense in a region where shortages are common and something that is cheap, filling and easily-reconstituted is a valuable commodity. But it still tastes like shit.

My plate was piled high with ch�uño, of course, and I valiantly picked my way around them, trying to smother their minging taste in dentist spit as best I could. Like the polite girl that I am, I struggled but eventually managed to finish everything on my plate though I felt dangerously heavy. Bear in mind that there was also nothing to drink: no liquid to wash down the massive quantities of starch that were currently coagulating like a large boulder inside me.

They say that it only takes a pound of potatoes to kill a baby but I reckon you�d have to throw them very accurately indeed. Feeling full to bursting, I wondered what the equivalent starch tolerance level was for an adult female. I felt I was rapidly approaching that level. In fact, I FELT LIKE I HAD ROSEMARY�S POTATO BABY GESTATING INSIDE ME. Gah.

I turned to the head honcho with a strained but satisfied look on my face (I always was a good actress) and said, �Que rica! � most delicious� When I turned back, there was a woman standing in front of me holding a plate of potatoes dotted with ch�uno and red sauce. Hang on a minute. Is this Groundhog Day? Whatthefuck? I took the plate with a smile and a bilious lurch and started to eat. Again.

I did the best I could. All I can say in my defence was that as a well brought up young lady, my mummy taught me to eat whatever I was given. And so I did, even though I thought the effort would kill me, if the starch didn�t cripple me first. Once you�ve eaten a pound of potatoes, you feel full. Once you�ve eaten two pounds of potatoes, you begin to think you�ll never move again. By the middle of the third pound, you�re starting to wonder whether it would be easier to try and swallow one whole and choke yourself to death.

I handed the clean plate to the honcho, said �Thank you, but if I eat any more, I�m going to explode.� He laughed, took the plate and said words which I struggled to translate, but which I was sure involved the words �next course�. Sure enough, there was a second course � another traditional Andean dish � potato and pasta soup, which is basically another way of saying boiled potatoes and boiled pasta with the water left in the pan. They handed me a shallow bowl. I took one bite and blanched (no pun intended). I put the plate down on the ground, unsteadily and apologising profusely to everyone around. I�m sorry. I cannot eat another thing. I�m so sorry.

The relief on the faces of the villagers was obvious. I was confused, then suddenly, it clicked. In the UK and much of the western world, it�s considered polite to finish everything on your plate. In rural Bolivia however, if you lick your plate clean it implies that you�re still hungry, and so out of courtesy they will keep feeding you until you stop asking for more. The head honcho nodded at my apology, said sagely �You must have been very hungry indeed,� and then proceeded to give a lengthy speech in Quechua about the new nursery and all the benefits it would bring. I was extremely glad that the political tradition of long speeches was upheld equally in the Andes because it gave me a chance to digest.

My speech was not quite so lengthy and relied almost entirely on the artful use of sign language, stilted Quechua and a smattering of burps. No-one in the audience spoke English, and only a few spoke Spanish, which made orating problematic � though I think I came up with a crowd-pleaser when I rubbed my heaving stomach and declared �Mmmm � potatoes yummy�. Everyone smiled. On reflection, perhaps they were just relieved that I’d finally stopped eating. More speeches were made and then the honcho summoned for the band to start to play.

Have you ever heard an Andean band play? No, not those guys with the bright ponchos and the pan-pipes playing �El Condor Pasa� in Leicester Square � the real thing. Paul Simon wouldn�t recognise it, I can assure you. The village band consisted of five men with flute-like objects (quinos), one bloke with an enormous bass drum and a small child with a snare drum and a bad sense of rhythm. They played breathless synchopated tooting to a pounding rhythm. Everyone listened.

Then suddenly the head honcho stood up and said something in Quechua, waving in my direction. I fought my way through the layers of starch that had invaded my brain to translate it. Now�our visitor�.to dance�future gerund�reflexive first person plural�.

No wait, that can�t be right. I must have got that reflexive bit the wrong way around. Bloody grammar. He must have said, �Now we will dance for our visitor�. Surely. Surely. Oh god. Please. No.

He gestured again and indicated that I should stand up. Ah. Apparently my translation was right the first time: �Now our guest will dance for us�. And so, on wobbly legs and full of potato, I did the universal embarrassed uncle/Nelson Mandela dance, aided by the tight garland around my upper arms, making it impossible to move too much, and accompanied by sharp tooting and an urgent drum.

Thankfully, once the laughter had subsided, the women of the village got up to dance too, dragging me with them.

The dance consisted of holding hands in a circle and running round in a clockwise direction, then suddenly changing direction and running the other way for a bit. Meanwhile, two women would get into the middle of the circle and spin each other around. I was breathless, being 12,000 feet above sea level; full, having eaten three pounds of potatoes; thirsty, having not drunken anything since breakfast; and most of all clumsy, although that may have had something to do with the fact that we were dancing on a 45 degree ploughed field. The dance continued this way for a good ten minutes. Suddenly, I was grabbed by a short, fierce-looking woman in a bowler hat.

Now, many Bolivian women wear felt bowler hats, and some are fierce looking. But almost all of them are beneath five feet tall. I am not. I�m 5�9� and I towered over this woman as she grabbed my hands and we started to spin each other, one arm over the head. Because she was so short, spinning her presented no problem, and her wide colourful skirts spread out into a bell shape and brushed my legs as she span. But every time she tried to spin me, I ended up being smacked in the face by my own forearm. Repeatedly, with every turn. Not very graceful. And all to the sound of complex, breathy music, which after a while, sort of made sense.

So picture the scene. I was 12,000 feet up in the Andes, full to bursting, vowing never to eat another potato as long as I live, being smacked repeatedly in the head and tripping over my own muddy boots in a field full of people I could barely communicate with. I was breathless, dizzy and dancing on the roof of the world. I wouldn�t have missed it for anything.