I have something embarrassing to do this morning. Lois and I run the local U3A Danish group and it's my job to write vocab lists for the Danish short story that the group is currently reading.
the embarrassing Danish book our little group is reading
Our current story, one of a collection by Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord, is turning out to be quite a potentially embarrassing one. It's about a woman with an unfaithful partner - and she's now out in her garden, chopping a bunch of slugs in two with her spade, apparently because the slugs "remind her of her partner's flaccid penis" - and this is her way of taking revenge on him.
Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord, author of the short story we're reading
The story is quite strong meat in places, and I'm just hoping that none of the group members will be so embarrassed by it that they resign. When you're doing a group study of a difficult and unusual language like Danish you need all the members you can get, that's for sure. We can't take a lot of resignations at this point! My goodness !!!!
This morning I "release" the potentially embarrassing text to our members - so let's hope that tomorrow morning I don't find my email inbox full of resignations. Fingers crossed!
Language note:
Call me a language nerd if you like! However, to me, it's interesting that in Danish, the equivalent of our word "snail" which is "snegl" in Danish (pronounced 'snile'), refers to both slugs and snails.
How to tell snails and slugs apart - a dummy's guide to the key techniques:
a typical snail (left) and a typical slug (right):
Can you tell the difference?
I can now exclusively reveal that the key technique in telling a snail from a slug is quite simple:
the snail has a shell and the slug hasn't! See? Simples!!!I always think of slugs and snails as quite different because English has these 2 distinct words for them, but I've discovered that this is quite a modern development. We also used to refer to both snails and slugs as "snails", until around 1700, when people started called slugs "slugs", taking the word "sluggard" [itself of probable Scandinavian origin] which means a slow-moving person, and shortening it to "slug", to refer to the slow-moving shell-less snail.
Weird, or what? What a crazy language we speak !!!!!
And what about that little rhyme we learnt as children? Q: What are little girls made of? A: Sugar and spice and all things nice". Q: And what are little boys made of? A: Slugs and snails and puppy dog's tails. Maybe this rhyme isn't as old as most of the other nursery rhymes we learnt. Maybe we should be told, and quickly!
Fascinating stuff !!!! [If you say so! - Ed]
10:30 Lois and I decided yesterday to postpone our Valentine's Day from yesterday till today, due to pressure of other business. We exchanged our presents in bed this morning, so it only remains to take our Valentine Day's walk and have our Valentine's Day lunch followed by our Valentine's Day nap. We've got it all planned, you see, we don't like to leave anything to chance!
First we go for our walk on the lovely common by the Three Horseshoes pub.
us passing our favourite local tree just down the road
from the Three Horseshoes pub
After our walk we drop into the Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop. Lois has a decaf tea and a flapjack, and I have a hot chocolate and a brownie. Yum yum!
11:45 We come home and have our Valentine's Day lunch: Thai Chicken Satay followed by Chocolate and Salted Caramel Pudding - yum yum (again)!
Thai chicken satay....
...followed by Chocolate and Salted Caramel Pudding - yum yum!
14:00 Time for our Valentine's Day nap, and I'm ashamed to say we don't come downstairs till 5 pm. Oh dear, we're so much lazier than we used to be - no doubt about that!!!!
16:00 When Lois and I were in the coffee shop this morning, we got talking to a woman who used to work at Qinetiq, the top-secret government contractor, who used to have all the land that our house is built on, as well as the land they are still using.
flashback to January: the top-secret government contractor
Qinetiq, whose site (left) abuts the new-build housing estate we live on
Before I retired, I used to work on "space" matters for a time, and my boss used to visit the Qinetiq site regularly - it was then still part of the Ministry of Defence. During that time, in 1980, my boss and I visited the US to attend a conference with US and Canadian analysts.
This was my first ever visit to the States. I got to drive over there and I first got the idea I would like to live and work in the US. I even got my "famous" (in our house) "job offer" from Lockheeds, who at that time used to do analysis work for the US Government. I often wonder how different our life would have been if I'd accepted this offer - the mind boggles!
flashback to 1980: me on my first business trip abroad,
sampling the world's best custard at a shop in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
Happy days !!!!!!
20:00 Lois disappears upstairs to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom.
21:15 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we wind down with an old episode of "The IT Crowd", the 1990's sitcom based on the activities of a small IT trouble-shooting team - Roy, Moss and their boss Jen - who work down in the basement of a big company, Denholm Industries.
You must remember this episode - it's a real "doozy" !!
It's the one where Roy finally arouses some interest among Denholm Industries' legendary "lovelies", the "Girls on the Seventh Floor" by accepting an offer to produce a nude calendar featuring the girls, in aid of a charity helping people with the same problem as Kimberley's brother.
You know the episode I'm talking about, don't you haha!
the idea for the Nude Calendar first surfaces
Roy is then hit by some pre-woke-era PC accusations of "sleaziness", that push him first to ditch the girls and try, first, a nude granny calendar instead, and then afterwards a partially-clothed calendar featuring Denholm Industries' not-so-legendary male "geek-chic" scientists and mathematicians.
What madness !!!!!
Eventually commercial pressure leads Roy back to making the calendar with pictures of the more saleable images he has of the legendary Seventh Floor Lovelies. However, when he seems to be just about to get Kimberley into bed, poor Roy can't expel images of the grannies and the partially-clothed geek mathematicians out of his head, so he has to turn Kimberley down.
Poor Roy!!!!!!
Roy's at last getting somewhere with the Seventh Floor's Kimberley,
but granny images keep coming into his mind - oh dear!
Needless to say, I've dozed off by the time of the programme's denouement anyway, but Lois fills me in when I wake up. I'm really getting old - no doubt about that haha!!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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