Re Palindromes

Following yesterday’s blogpost, I must point out to my US friends that we put the day in front of the month. So even though my sister thinks I am wrong 2 March will be 02-3-20, April 02-4-20 etc at least here in NZ, Australia and Britain.

 

 

 

 

Another Palindrome

 

Here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, we are almost at the end of this day February. 2, 2020. And as I was writing in my journal i saw it was a numeric palindrome – 02.2.20.

And then of course I realised that the  second of most months this year will also be palindromes. The only two that don’t fit are October and December.

Isn’t it amazing the things we dwell on when there is nothing more exciting to think about?

And then I thought of a palindrome that can be read not only from back to front but also from up or down..Yes, I am sure you’ve got it – NOON

Of course, we all know some palindromes

A man a plan a canal panama: Madam in Eden I’m Adam: Do geese see god  and so on.

And a couple of short ones. – an Italian one amore, roma. And borrow or rob.

But do you know AIBOHPHOBIA? It is a fear of palindromes. Yes, really.

And with that,  I will say goodnight,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Words

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets.

It’s been some time since I wrote on words, although any of you who have stuck with me know that I love words.

Every year, the Oxford Living Dictionary, among others, determines one word for the year. Their word for 2018 is Toxic.

We are told – “The adjective toxic is defined as ‘poisonous’ and first appeared in English in the mid-seventeenth century from the medieval Latin toxicus, meaning ‘poisoned’ or ‘imbued with poison’”. Read the whole article for more interesting facts about toxic and its uses.

Some 1400 words were added to the dictionary in 2018. And so for your delectation and delight, here are some of them.;

•  A nothingburger –  a person or thing of no importance, value, or substance, especially something which, contrary to expectations, turns out to be insignificant or unremarkable.
• Glamping – It’s not just camping. It’s glamorous camping — and it usually means spending a night in the great outdoors with beds, electricity, and even indoor plumbing (so you’re not really outdoors at all)
• Bingeable –Merriam-Webster defines this adjective as “having multiple episodes or parts that can be watched in rapid succession,”.
• Goat – It stands for “greatest of all time,” and you’ll usually hear the acronym as a descriptor for LeBron James, Serena Williams, or Tom Brady.
• Denonym – a proper noun used to denote the natives or inhabitants of a particular country, state, city, etc.
• Mansplain — to explain something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge about the topic.
• Deglobalization” is the process of making something less global and more regional in nature, focus, impact, etc.; esp. the reversal or decline of globalization, or its effects.
• Hangry is defined as bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.

Did you see  Business Insider’s January 5 article on the word of the year? – “The American Dialect Society named “tender-age shelter” the 2018 “Word of the Year.”  Read more here 

But probably my favourite word for the year is again Trumpism – the philosophy and politics espoused by Donald Trump.

So another rambling post from this ageing mind in a sunny but very windy Wellington, NZ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today – A Palindrome

 

 

Today’s date is 10 October 2018 –  so  8/10/18 is a true palindrome.

Other palindromic dates are 8/11/18, 6/10/16, 5/10/15 and so on.

And that got me thinking of word palindromes. How about :

• Never odd or even
• A nut for a jar of tuna
• Was it a rat I saw?
• Senile felines
• Are we not drawn onward
• Was it  a car  or a cat I saw
• And of course – A man, a plan, a canal: Panama

What about people’s names

• Hannah
• Anna
• Otto
• Elle
• Eve
• Bob

And you get the idea. I am sure you can come up with many more. But this was a good, easy way to spend a lovely sunny Monday afternoon, sitting in the sun. following my walk; with my laptop and of course, the ubiquitous cup of tea.

I found this on Pinterest. I hope I’m not impinging on anyone copyright.

Another view of Christmas

My sister in Los Angeles is as intrigued with new words as am I.  She asked if I knew this word – Conciliabule.  No, I didn’t, do you?    It is a clandestine meeting of conspirators.  So how can I use it in a sentence?  “Obviously, the group of women in the coffee shop was a conciliabule.  What were they planning, and against whom?” Is that OK although it isn’t one sentence but two?

And today into my inbox popped this from Qantas.  That is the Australian National Airline.  As an aside, years ago when we were in New York I had to meet my husband at the Qantas office.  When I told the cab driver where I wanted to go, he asked if that were one of the newly emerging African airlines.  Our friends at Qantas were not amused.

Anyway, back to the inbox

On the twelfth day of Christmas Qantas offered me

Flights to New York from $599 economy one way and

Twelve Big Apples
Eleven junk boats sailing
Ten lions roaring
Nine hibiscuses blooming
Eight roos a jumping
Seven lucky dragons
Six Asian elephants
Five Big Bens chiming
Four koi swimming
Three empanadas
Two merlions
And a koala in a gum tree.

Notes –
1.   The Merlion (Malay: Singa-Laut) is a well-known marketing icon of Singapore depicted as a mythical creature with a lion’s head and the body of a fish
2.   An empanada is a stuffed bread or pastry baked or fried in many countries of The Americas and in Spain

A Koala in a Gum Tree

Have fun whatever you are doing today.  I am and enjoying the sunshine here in this most beautiful city.

Courtesy Simon Woolf

Synchronicity, Serendipity or Coincidence.

Definition – the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear
significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.

I recently read a post from my dear friend/sister of choice Chris at Bridges Burning.  She wrote about serendipity and how three people, she in Ontario, my sister in the UK and me in New Zealand,  can connect over a comment on Skype.  The comment and the thoughts that preceded and followed it bounced around the world.  It went from Kitchener, Ontario to Wellington, New Zealand and then on to Oxford in the United Kingdom.

The definition of Serendipity is – the occurrence and development of events by
chance in a happy or beneficial way.

Serendipity and synchronicity are quite different words, often confused and should be used differently.  For instance, it would not have been correct for Chris to use synchronicity in her telling but it is correct when we both write about the same thing in a blog post.  Or when I send an email saying we should Skype only to find that she has sent the exact email to me.

How often we find this synchronicity.   I remember years ago when training to be a Life Coach.  I had read one day about Sedona in Arizona, the red rocks and the general feeling of spiritual well-being, the artists and healers who flock there, and so determined that I should go there in the not too distant future.  The course was conducted on a phone link of 2 hours each Monday evening.  Soon after I logged in I heard one of the other participants talking about a visit he had made to Sedona the previous year and how he was planning on returning the next year for the Sedona Film Festival.

My mind/imagination was captured by this place and then the next morning, in an email from my sister in Los Angeles, she said she thought the next time I visited we should go to Sedona as she had heard such great things about it.

Well didn’t that exactly meet the definition –  significantly related but have no discernible causal connection?

Recently, because it was the anniversary of the death of The Architect, I was thinking about him and about the firm he had established many years ago.  Later that day I was at the Hospice and learned that it is his old firm that will be doing the architectural work for the new hospice building. Serendipity at work again.

I say that there is no such thing as coincidence, but do I really believe that?  There is definitely synchronicity, serendipity and probably there is room for coincidence too.

The definition of Coincidence is – a striking occurrence of two or more events
at one time apparently by mere chance:

Several years ago I was in London for the weekend.  The elderly woman for whom I was playing companion went off to a wedding which left me free.  It just so happened that friends were visiting London from NZ and we decided to meet up.  The first evening we went around the corner from the apartment looking for some place to have a drink and decide where to eat.  Imagine my surprise when, on turning the corner I saw three friends, a couple from Auckland, NZ and one from Sydney, Australia.  I hadn’t seen any of these people for several years, so their being in London at just that particular weekend was certainly a coincidence.

And for you – stop for a moment and ask yourself, what coincidences have been happening in my life recently that I am not paying attention to? Where do I need to be seeing the truth? What is the Universe trying to tell me?

And consider this –

If there were no such thing as coincidence,
there would be no such word
Heron Carvic (born Geoffrey Rupert William Harris)
English actor writer.   1913 –  1980 

By the way – if you are an Agatha Christie fan, hop over to my other site to read a review on A Talent for Murder.

Petrichor

Another new word for me today.  You may know that I am a pluviophile – a lover of rain.

I have written about walking in the rain several times in the past.  More particularly last year when the only independent way of getting around was to walk.

And today I found another new word Petrichor – the smell of the earth after the rain.

Wikipedia tells us “Petrichor (/ˈpɛtrᵻkɔər/) is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. The word is constructed from Greek πέτρα petra, meaning “stone”, and ἰχώρ īchōr, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.”

 

I am sure you all know that smell.  It’s almost as if the earth is saying, OK time to wake up and start reproducing the flowers, trees, vegetables etc.  I love that smell and am so glad that I found the word.  But I do wonder when I shall use either or both of these words and in what context.

We haven’t had any rain for several days so I am sure I shall smell petrichor again soon and  I am sure that some of my friends in the Northern Hemisphere would welcome a little rain at present.

And now, as I don’t have anything else to share today, I shall go out for coffee with my daughter and then return to read more of your posts this afternoon.

But first, I shall drink this cup of tea.

“

No matter how dark the night we know that whatever happens,
the sun will rise tomorrow and then all the shadows
will be chased away.”
Judith Baxter 1938 –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More New Words

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” 
― Rudyard Kipling

I have always been mesmerised/entranced/spellbound by words and in this, I am joined by both my sisters.  I suspect this is because our father was similarly mesmerised/entranced/spellbound.

Last week I came across the word multifarious and while I was sure I could guess at its meaning I looked it up.  It means having many varied parts or aspects.  And then a couple of days later, one of my sisters of choice, Chris at Bridges Burning posed a question that asked for one word to describe yourself.   Chris chose Flotsam as her word,  and Celi at the kitchen gardens chose eclectic, and I chose multifarious because I think it absolutely describes me. What word would you choose?

And then, my ever resourceful sister in Los Angeles came up with

I’m now trying to find a sentence in which to use this lovely word.  That is of course if I can work out how to pronounce it.

Note:   According to Stephen King

“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus
is the wrong word.
There are no exceptions to this rule.”

And who am I to argue with the master?

And turning to the Oxford English I find that logophile is the noun to describe a lover of words.

 

 

 

The Eight

Those of you who have stuck with me for any length of time, know that I am obsessed with words and the English language. We all learn at a young age certain rules for spelling the words.  And probably the one that we all remember well after leaving our English classes far behind is I BEFORE E EXCEPT AFTER C.

But hang on, there are exceptions to the rule and the exceptions prove the rule.  Here I have to say that our English teacher, most appropriately named Miss English, told us that the comment was that exceptions probe the rule.  Which did you learn?

But wait, how does the exception prove the rule? Wouldn’t it do just the opposite? Doesn’t it prove that the rule does not hold for all cases and is therefore not a rule at all?

Today when noodling (my sister’s word) around the web I came across this.  And I just had to share it.

Oh and another new word, just in case you aren’t impressed with The Eight.  Do you know this word?

Thanks to my sister in Los Angeles for this.  And as I said to her, I always thought I was the dancer in the family.Here endeth tody’s English lesson, except for this quote that I found once again noodling around the web.

Here endeth tody’s English lesson, except for this quote that I found once again noodling around the web.

 

Drawing on my fine command of the English language,
I said nothing.
Robert Charles Benchley.American humorist, and
newspaper columnist
1889-1945

 

Words and More Words

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long,
difficult words but rather short, easy words like
“What about lunch?”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Posted letters are few and far between these days as so many of us use email instead. So when I arrived home the other day to see an envelope with my name and address handwritten, I became quite excited.  That is until I opened it and found a business card inside setting an appointment date with an Otolaryngologist.  Well, I had no idea what an Otolaryngologist did so I went to our trusty friend Google to find that it is is an ear nose and throat surgeon.  Suddenly the card and appointment made sense.  Since the accident, my hearing has markedly declined and this was a follow up to a hearing test I had recently with an audiologist.

Note – I am now referring to the accident as my latest adventure.  Sounds better don’t you think and it gives me lots to look forward to.

 Not ready for bike riding but who knows where this adventure will take me.

So another new word and yesterday while reading Elizabeth George’s novel Just One Evil Act I came across another word new to me -” ..that chain of thought led him ineluctably to the Pakistani professor…..”

The Oxford Dictionary tells me it is an adverb meaning inevitable, not to be escaped, impossible to avoid etc etc.  So we get the meaning and see how it fits in the Elizabeth George sentence.

By the way, are you a follower of her books.  They are about Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley of the Metropolitan Police and his sidekick Sergeant Barbara Havers.  An amazing writer of whom I am totally in awe, and if you haven’t read any of her books I suggest you hurry off to your local library and pick up one.

Having returned from the mall where I had a facial and bought my own copy of Upwords, the game I play with my friend on Tuesday afternoons.  I can now introduce it to another friend who is almost housebound.

I shall continue to read Elizabeth George’s book.I’m at page 493 of 719.  Will I finish it this afternoon?

I found this on Pinterest. I hope I’m not impinging on anyone copyright.