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2002-11-08 16:25
I had wondered for a while if engelska -hood and svenska
(&c)
-het were cognate, but my Concise OED only gave an Old English
source for the former. But now this shiny
Netymological Whatsit
has come to the rescue:
-hood - "state or condition of being," from
O.E. -had "condition,
position," cognate with Ger. -heit, from P.Gmc. *khaidus.
(In fact Scandiwegian -het came via the prolonged Hanseaticity
of the peninsula and was one of the Filthy Foreignisms that Aasen, the
Nynorsk Nutter, was keen to eliminate, but really.)
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2002-11-08 13:08
The phorgotten Phrench philosopher is somewhat back
in
fashion. Which is nice. (This is more interesting than anything in Point de Vue this week. Sigh.)
The codfish, yum yum, on the other hand, has never been out of fashion,
to its
regret, although so far as I know it has never been awarded the
Nobel prize for literature.
Oh, and I have a theory about the Carl Philip Lacuna: since his
relationship with this alleged "Emma" is not yet Kourt-Approved, they
don't qualify for Obsequious Photo Opportunity style coverage in the
Point de Vue manner, but since his is an uncontroversial and
domestic manner of behaving he doesn't make the skvallerbladen,
either.
Mysteriously, though, even the mighty Ritva is denying all knowledge
of the one Svensk Damtidning where C-P had a starring role. Perhaps
there is a conspiracy, after all?
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2002-11-08 10:45 (UTC)
I heard it from Fiona,
who heard it from a friend, who got a fax from her father, who gets
press releases about these things, that the Danish court is again
denying rumours of an Royal Engagement. Probably it was also in
newspapers, but where's the fun in that?
So such liberties Knudella may, allegedly, have taken with the Royal
Arse should accordingly be demoted to notwithstandinghood, and are
of no constitutional consequence.
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2002-11-07 15:56 (UTC)
[ Sorry about that; we're going for the coveted Most
Painfully-Contrived Multi-Lingual Pun Outside Joyce Scholarship
award. The pay's lousy, but think of the prestige! ]
It's been a slow princess week, so here's a story from Dansk BT (no
relation to Svensk DT) whose front-page I am not prepared to risk
linking, in which de facto kronprinsess-elect Knu�ella ("Mary"
for short) is observed to be wearing a hat.
It would, of course, be folly to the point of risking disaster to
install her as Drottning-to-be without assessing her hat-wearing
talents. I rejoice, as do no doubt all who wish Denmark - not to
mention "Mary" - well, to be in a position to tell you that she passes
this demanding test with flying colours.
Phew!
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2002-11-07 10:15 (UTC)
Blurbs! Marvellous. When I was but a callow unemployed yoof browsing
the bookshelves of the charity shops that sprung up like wild meadow
flowers in the high streets of Britain in the recession of the early
90's, a kind word from Anthony Burgess on the back of a random
paperback pretty much guaranteed a sale. (The publishing industry has
since preferred to attribute opinions mostly to newspapers, but I
don't give a rat's arse what "The Guardian" thinks. Opinions are for
people!) Blurbs matter, because books come out in overpriced and
cumbersome but allegedly prestigious hard back editions, which like
all reasonable people I shun contemptously, which gather dust forlornly
for a year in bookshelves before being replaced by an sensible
paperback. It is thus extremely unlikely that anyone can remember
anything about the reviews by the time the book becomes purchaseable.
For Top Quality Imaginary Blurbing Entertainment, go read Turbulent
Velvet's blurbage.
(No real Goffmen were harmed in the making of these parodies, we are
assured.)
Another triumphant cock robin from Goffman. What impresses this time
is the thinly reticulated ribbon binding his truculent box, and the
impressive bow into which it is tied. Goffman has the fattest legs in
modern sociology, and it's a delight to watch him walk.
Marvellous.
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2002-11-06 13:06 (UTC)
The working title of my novel-in-progress is Let's go to work,
honeys!, taken from the Aftonbladet story
Onanichock i Big Brother, which I read back in February to
see if the title really meant what I though it meant. (It did.) I
think this was my first example of Real Life Svengelska in the wild;
you simply can't say that in my dialect of English, at least.
(Honey doesn't pluralise; it's a nickname, possibly a default
one, but not a noun. If you're wondering.) Of course, I actually
like Svengelska, and I'm quite happy to consider it a dialect of
English in its ow2n right, rather than "substandard" English. And it
felt silly not having a title; everyone else had a title. (Most of
them have word-counts I can only dream of, too. Gah!) If you can
think of a better title I'm all ears.
Since I can't find anything online even about Carl Philip's love life,
we may as well continue on with the languagey goodness: la-di-dah DN
is covering the
threat to bilingualism in (a region of) Finland. Very geography
project, I'm thinking, also. There have been suggestions that Sweden
should intervene with a little neighbourly diplomatic pressure, by
people who I sincerely hope are better judges of the likely Finnish
reaction than me.
Back at Aftonbladet there's something of a series on children's eating
habits.
Apparently
sweeties are not an appropriate substitute for proper food (s�ger
expert). You heard it here first, Varied Reader.
[Permalink]
2002-11-06 09:58 (UTC)
I quite like this writing longhand - making it hard to tinker with
sentences is good. (Those that start at the beginning and go on until
the end and then stop are in the minority on the 'bladet, it must be
said.) But I could do with a desk. In the absence thereof I'm
writing semi-reclined with the pad on my knee and my feet up on an
upturned cardboard box. Nothing but the finest hos des, you know.
Another 5 pages last night, by 11:30. When I'd finished I realised
I hadn't used up all my rant, but I'll have a rematch tonight. �ora
Sigur�sd�ttir, yesterday's new character is a philosopher specialising
(currently) in time, specifically the relationship between
phenomenological and "physical" time. She is, of course, routinely
late for appointments.
Incidentally, once you have boy characters and girl characters in the
same scene it's surprisingly difficult to stop them flirting.
"Keep your hands where I can see them until I get you on the boat!", I
keep telling them, but will they listen? (Well, yes, they will. I'm the
author, dammit, and I have a veto. But it was a close
thing.)
[Permalink]
2002-11-05 11:23 (UTC)
"Making a lobster out of a woodlouse."
Woodlouseses (properly woodlices) are crustaceans, too, you see.
[Permalink]
2002-11-05 9:22 (UTC)
I'm still behind, but I got through yesterday's allotted scritching.
I'm learning a lot, mostly about how to let things unfold in less of a
hurry than I typically employ here. In five pages yesterday, Ulf took
a train ride to Lund (delayed by the unseasonal sn�kaos, of course)
and reviewed his career. It turns out that being uprooted to Sk�ne as
a 13-year old sparked his interest in field and socio-linguistics,
when he was ostracised by new class mates. Then I had his father move
the family to Finland, just to underline the point. But he didn't
even make it to Lund, for a job interview that is already in a
flashback. So.
I'm not so worried about finding stuff to write, now. The narrative
flows like refrigerated lead, and the prose has the grace of a
waltzing camel, but the real problem is still and inevitably the word
count. I'm effectively a day behind schedule and Thursdays are
reserved for Swedishclass, and I wrote from 7 to 11 last night, with
only breaks for eating, pacing and bathing. Even writing solidly a
page is half an hour's work, without pausing for thought.
This weekend is going to be crucial.
[Permalink]
2002-11-04 13:57
Google claims there's no such word, but we know better, don't we?
After all, what else are you going to call the come-down meal at the
Haffna[? my notes are at home] after a wild night out on the town in
T�rshavn? (Pilot whale steak a speciality, if you preorder. I put an
American in the team, so that the Norwegian would peorder it, and
allow a digression on the difficulties of obtaining maple syrup in the
Faroes. It's all words, you see...)
And "soci-fucking-ologist" is two words, right? It is the way I count
them, anyway.
In other news, I've been writing this on paper at home (where I don't
have a working pooter or, therefore, a choice) and so I've bought a
new cheap fountain pen for the job. I like cheap fountain pens, as
I've said before, and on the desk in front
of me there's a Rotring "Art Pen", which is terrible for script, a
Sheaffer fine-nib, which is impossibly scratchy (their medium nib is
impossibly fat, God knows how they ever sell anything) and a stubby
little gun-metal grey Creek pen, which I liked even though you had to
put the lid on the barrel to make it long enough to hold, and the lid
clasp mechanism broke. But the nibs irretrievably bent now.
My favourite ever cheap and plastic was a Pilot one (not the
disposable, puh-lease) but by the time it got
dropped once to often they'd stopped making them.
It's a tenner's worth of Stypen, this time, after a run of cheap
Watermen. It's finer than I'm used to, but only a little bit
scritchy. We'll see how it handles a lecture on Normal Forms - a fine-ish
nib is good for the kind of Death By A Thousand Subscripts we've been
enduring there, and then the big test will be tonight's desperate
attempt to catch up on the word count.
(The lecture was OK, from a writing-implement point of view, you'll be
thrilled to hear. Didn't understand a word of it, mind.)
[Permalink]
2002-11-04 10:20 (UTC)
A
Swedish action plan to secure the future of the language. [via Klipspringer]. In English, we note
with as straight a face as possible under the circumstances.
The future status of "minor" national language is an interesting
topic, especially if you're Marxist enough to consider that the
concept of a National Language is an artefact of an ideology rooted in
the 19th century nationalism which did so much to divide Europe into a
bunch of nation-states who could have wars with each other about their
boundaries.
(Rereading the Economist Millenium edition in lieu of any recent
issue, because I'm still sulking, I was reminded how much I like(d)
their approach, which I consider essentially Marxist, in the sense in
which you can just ignore all the pointless Communist Prophet rubbish
and acknowledge Marx as a worthy heir to Adam Smith in his analysis of
the way society, ideology and economics are intertwined. Sigh.)
I would like to have the leisure to ponder such things, but at the
moment I don't.
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