|
Post by Little Jack Horner on May 14, 2020 14:12:50 GMT
I had no idea the handshake was “oh-so-British”. I belong to a group where this is routine between men whereas a hug is between women, and men and women but, when I joined the group, I thought it was unusual as it is not routine in my other groups. A few years ago, when I observed how many people do not wash their hands after using the lavatory, I started to reject a handshake and grasped the forearm instead. At my school this was the practice in the annual school play, usually Shakespearean histories, and I had always assumed this “the old fashioned way“. But I don’t really know. It does work easily and no-one has been offended. It clearly demonstrates the absence of a concealed weapon which I believe is the origin of both the handshake and the raised hand salute.
|
|
|
Post by Dave Miller on May 14, 2020 21:04:18 GMT
The handshake is (or at least was, prior to Covid) noticeably more prevalent in France than in Britain. In Britain it’s used in formal introductions, or occasionally between men of middle age and more, when meeting up after quite some time.
I was delighted to see that, in France, teenagers within a village, meeting up at the bar, would all shake hands with each new arrival.
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on May 14, 2020 21:12:06 GMT
I loathe hugs; they're far too intimate, and when someone I hardly know (usually a woman) hugs me without asking consent I consider it to be common assault, verging on sexual abuse. And the French bises seriously put me off the idea of living in France, so I'm glad to read that they've virtually died out; Covid's done something useful for humanity, then. I've always gone for a good, manly handshake. I take your objection to it seriously though, LJH - because there is indeed a high proportion of filthy scumbags who don't wash their hands after using the lavatory - but one shakes hands with one's right hand, which I don't use for much else. I digress. When the Chinese thoughtfully sent us the Wuhan Plague I had to reconsider my opinion on greetings; handshakes and hugs are definitely out, as are forearm grasping, elbow touching and any other method that involves being within two metres of each other. I rather like the Hindu Nasmate but I'll probably get some confused looks if I use it in rural Kent.
I'd proffer Mr Spock's "Live long and prosper" salute - I believe it originated in Judaism - if my fingers would obey my brain.
|
|
|
Post by Little Jack Horner on May 14, 2020 21:36:48 GMT
I really, really, really, hate predictive text assistance. Today, I sent a message to my son in which I said I was “Awaiting a delivery from Tesco”. Zeus knows what I typed because he received “Agitated a delivery from Tesco”. I usually take care to check but...
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on May 14, 2020 22:18:15 GMT
I really, really, really, hate predictive text assistance. Today, I sent a message to my son in which I said I was “Awaiting a delivery from Tesco”. Zeus knows what I typed because he received “Agitated a delivery from Tesco”. I usually take care to check but... I loathe it, too, LJH. When I was working at the newspaper I used to ask writers to turn off their predictive text or autocorrect because those were the origins of more typos than was orthographic ignorance. Autocorrect is particularly likely to mangle complicated or unusual names. One writer in particular (the entertainment editor) was rather poor at spelling so felt insecure without autocorrect. I got her to agree to submitting work for just one week without that "aid" and, to her surprise and my gratification, her typos reduced by 57 per cent. Okay, her material contained a lot of odd names (entertainers with their confected monikers or song/show titles trying to be smart), and it was mostly those that were autocorrect mangled – Siobhan being rendered as Sibling, for example. Despite the results of the week's experiment, that editor reverted to using autocorrect. "Without autocorrect I would be even later with my copy" was her excuse. Since my retirement her material appears in print with frequently unemended misspellings – despite my having been replaced with two proofers.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on May 16, 2020 2:31:10 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Little Jack Horner on May 16, 2020 12:57:35 GMT
The article on sense and language was very interesting, Vv, and I would like to know more but I find that, although English has many words for colours, the words aren’t necessarily well understood. And it’s not helped by the imaginations of wallpaper and paints sales persons. Thesaurus.com has a host of words for ‘red’ (one or two of which are related to colour but are not, I think, colours) but how many of us can distinguish between fuchsia and crimson and burgundy?
cardinal coral crimson flaming glowing maroon rose wine bittersweet blooming blush brick burgundy carmine cerise cherry chestnut claret copper dahlia fuchsia garnet geranium infrared magenta pink puce ruby russet rust salmon sanguine scarlet titian vermilion bloodshot florid flushed healthy inflamed roseate rosy rubicund ruddy rufescent
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on May 16, 2020 20:47:20 GMT
I once heard it said that women use several dozen words to describe colours, whilst men know about ten and two of those are "black" and "white". My wife referred to "tope" recently and I had no idea to what colour she was referring - in fact I still don't have much notion.
Titian's on your list, LJH; did he prefer a particular shade of red?
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on May 16, 2020 22:28:13 GMT
Taupe: a mid-tone brownish-greyish muddiness; hardly a colour at all. Perhaps the best one can say of taupe is that it's "inoffensive".
As for the array of ridiculous names given to colours, courtesy of imaginative "designers": How about this one. Imagine that luminous radium green once found on clock faces; now find a name for it that isn't radium. Oh, said Mr / Ms fancy-pants designer, let's call it Breath of Spring. Although there were times when I tinted and mixed my own paints I still find it difficult to see Breath of Spring as a green when it's made from a pure white base with a drop – literally one drop! – of hansa yellow, an extremely bright canary tint. As Little Buttercup sang in G&S's Penzance: "Things are seldom what they seem ...".
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on May 17, 2020 0:58:08 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on May 17, 2020 9:18:58 GMT
Not only did I not know what colour taupe was, I couldn't even spell it.
In the 1970s I owned a purple (not my choice) car, the official colour of which was "aconite". At about the same time my parents decided to paint a wall or something yellow, and the shade of yellow they chose was called … "aconite".
For many centuries, until the fruit of the name arrived on the tables of the rich, we got by quite happily by thinking that orange was red.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on May 17, 2020 11:26:37 GMT
From the American Oxford:
aconite | ˈakənʌɪt |
noun
1 a poisonous plant of the buttercup family, bearing hooded pink or purple flowers and found in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Genus Aconitum, family Ranunculaceae: many species, including monkshood and wolfsbane. • [mass noun] an extract of aconite, used as a poison or in pharmacy.
2 (also winter aconite) a small herbaceous Eurasian plant, cultivated for its yellow flowers in early spring. Genus Eranthis, family Ranunculaceae: several species.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on May 19, 2020 1:02:09 GMT
Something light … Some rhyming slang, Aussie style – final two paragraphs. No doubt most terms will be understood by Brits, Aussies, Kiwis. “Have a Captain Cook at me, I’m in all sorts of froth and bubble, mate,” said the well-built kangaroo. “They shut down the rubbity dub and I’m out on me Khyber Pass without an Oxford scholar. No Bugs Bunny at all; can’t even afford a pig’s ear, mate” said Big Red, before he inexplicably attempted to cross the frog and toad without taking a butcher’s hook and was subsequently hit by whatever rhyming slang for ‘truck’ is. Betoota Advocate, Aussie satirical online newspaper.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on May 19, 2020 11:20:58 GMT
A new word (to me): cataphile = urban explorer
|
|
|
Post by Dave Miller on May 19, 2020 18:23:47 GMT
Nothing to do with catamite, then!
|
|