Saturday, October 31, 2009

Word for the Day

I have been rereading a lot of P.G.Wodehouse lately, particularly enjoying Jeeves and Bertie, and he uses the word 'blench' a lot. I always assumed this was a variation on 'blanch' - ie to go white. It seemed to fit, someone would get a shock or bad news and would 'blench visibly'. But apparently it means 'to shy away, quail'. That is, quailing of the shying away kind, not the bird kind.

I also learned, no matter how many times you check something, CHECK IT AGAIN! I had 15 copies of a book I had edited delivered to me today, to distribute to authors etc, and found that I had in the end sent the printer the wrong version. I had sent the 'final' version for a different purpose, not the 'final' version for the printer. So I spent a few Saturday hours fixing that mistake.

But maybe I learned something today.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Learning about weeds

Is it even possible to learn something on a Friday? Or is the brain too exhausted by then? Day two ... I can't be struggling yet. Lets see, I learned that the prickly weeds I have in my herb garden don't care if you are wearing gloves, they just scratch their poison into your bare arms, leaving red spots and welts. One downside to gardening on a gorgeous spring day is the fact you are not as covered up against thorns, insects and sunshine. These particular weeds, I don't know their name (common OR botanic), have a very shallow root system. They don't need to anchor themselves particularly firmly in the ground when nothing can brave the poisonous spines to yank them out. Other weeds I faced, dandeliony things (probably actual dandelions, but I wouldn't like to gamble on it), have no protection and the stems and leaves break off extremely easily - leaving the entire root system still in the ground to grow again. A bit annoying really.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The day I learned something

I was chatting to a musician the day before emceeing an event she was to provide the music for. I had never emceed before (I only agreed to it after a glass of champagne) and I was rather nervous. I asked her if she would be selling her independant CDs at the function, and what it was called so I could advertise when I introduced her.
'Oh, it's eponymous,' she breezed.
Epony-mous, I started to write.
A nearby friend tactfully pointed out that the musician actually meant the CD was self-titled, not that it was called 'Eponymous'.
Really? I always thought eponymous meant something like 'most important'. Definitive perhaps. But apparently it is a person after whom a literary etc work is named, or a work named after its central character. So there you go. I learned something. And I wondered, do I really learn something every day? So I started this Blog, to find out.

Well, that was a few days ago. Did I learn anything today? Maybe I learned that I really shouldn't keep Cadbury's Mint Bubbles chocolate in the house. Or maybe I knew that already.