Bluecat

On the contrary, they don't accept it. They are trying to find out whether it exists or not - quite a different thing.

... what a Higgs Bosun might be, and why it matters? Wonder no more!

Winston S Churchill once told my Mum that the secret to a happy marriage was never to have breakfast together. Trivial point, but i got a kick out of typing the first seven words...

Ah, well I won't hold your advantage against you, Bro Devon, you played the game like a gent - and taught me some American English I wasn't quite up to speed with. This was fun - has anyone got another word game?

No more contributions? OK - fine efforts, prizes all round. These words are all autoantonyms - that is, a word which can have two opposite meanings. The strict version says that the word should not need to be modified or collocated to make the opposite meaning, and the meaning should really be opposite, not just different. So in baseball (I believe) you strike when you hit the ball, and you strike when you fail to hit it. to dust is great: it can mean to remove fine particles from a surface, and it can mean to sprinkle fine particles onto a surface and so on. It's a fine language, English, but can you imagine how difficult this stuff is for a non-native learner?

I think I nicked that joke from Corey, too.

Is this hypothetical, Mike, or are we negotiating?

A young bookseller here has just published a collection of Stupid Things People Say In Bookshops. It's brilliant. I've also worked in retail, and in a lending library, so I'm enjoying the opportunity to categorise: There's the 'Hi, I'm your new boss': Is it alright if Ieave my toddlers here while I go to the supermarket? The 'helpful': No I can't remember what it's called, or who wrote it, or who the publisher is, or what it's about. It's got a green cover. Or maybe it's more blue... And it's very good. The snarky: Customer: Where can I find [the novel] 'A Woman's Guide to Adultery' Assistant: Teach-Yourself books are on the second floor, madam. The L1 interference (Non-Brit readers should imagine the first speaker as talking like Prince Charles: Customer in Travel section: 'Have you got George Orwell's Dining Out in Paris and London?' Assistant: 'That's Down and Out in Paris and London, sir. You'll find it In the Literature section on your right.' Customer (annoyed): 'No, no. It's Dining Out in Paris and London. It should be here' Poor George seems to get them... The Plain Misguided: 'Have you got 1986 by George Orwell? 'It's 1984, and yes, we've got it over there.' 'No, it's definitely 1986. I always remember it, cos that's the year I was born. And finally the 'do you have any idea what you just did?' Customer who has spent the last 2 hours picking assistant's well-stocked brain about books, authors, ISBNs, editions, bindings and etc (pocketing his copious notes): Well, thank you for that. I'll get it on Amazon and save a couple of quid. Bye.

OW!! Take care of yourself, sweetheart!

Nice! Reminds me of when I ordered a mushroom curry from the vegetarian side of the menu, and was asked if I wanted it 'on or off the bone'. To be fair, there were two waiters there, and the second one did the most enormous double take I've ever witnessed. It robbed me of the chance to say 'if you can find a bone in there, the deal's off' - plus I didn't think of that till later.

Thank you Green Elph. You always behave. Sometimes you behave naughtily, and sometimes you behave well. And when you behave naughtily, you behave well.

Interesting indeed. Thanks for explaining so clearly. It sounds like some of the prose writings of Blake - though much clearer the way you put it. He was raised a Swedenborgian, and I wonder if Swedenborg had something to do with it. I have read that, in some versions of Hinduism, the deities have emanations which are themselves divine. The emanation of a deity conceived of as masculine is female, and vice versa. Sometimes the emanation is viewed as the sexual energy of the deity - which I have been told is the reason for gods being shown with curvy women wrapped around them in athletic and surprising ways. Maybe someone who knows more about Hinduism can confirm this? In a recent Indian TV soap opera about Ganesh, the deity produced an emanation which was described as his daughter. After the episode was aired, shrines to her began to be built and worshippers appeared: a case of modern theogeny by scriptwriter.

Well, isn't it part of your job description to scare the hell out of folks?

This reminds me of the old joke about the dinner party conversation... OK though, I'll bite. I would not torture. Not for a million, not for ten million, not for any number of million dollars, or any other currency.

I had to do a rush harvesting of tomatoes last year when the blight struck (still, they made some pretty good tomato sauce). We don't often get a long enough growing season for them to ripen well outdoors anyway, and I notice nobody has eaten my green tomato pickles from some years back. So, no toms this year for us. We hope to get a little greenhouse sorted out, and with luck try for a batch under glass next year - and some peppers and oregano too... mmm mmmm. Lilac in England is just on the edge of blooming. I saw some today, a little glimpse of joy. Certain plants get to me that way, almost all of them things we had in the garden where I grew up. We had a lilac lilac and a white lilac front and back. (I passed the house a few years ago and the rascals we sold it to have cut down one of the lilacs at the front: a dismal sight). Apple blossom boughs against a blue and white sky... as I saw them from my pram.

Seems like it's either her or Popeye.

'Behaving', unmodified, could almost make the list. I'd kinda like to know the naughty ones... Ooh, that reminds me: aught It's dialect/archaic round my way (but not in the north of England and in Scotland) but it works.

I hadn't thought of 'sanction', Decline, but you are spot on. Well played, sir! Compound is very nice, as is puzzle (though strictly, where I live, there's a bit off the end). I like dust. Buckle, yes. Snap? Snap?? Oh... yes! Good. (It doesn't work where I come from, but international rules apply ). 'Fit' - I can't think how that... er... fits. What am I not seeing, Brother Devon? (PM me if you'd like play to continue.)

How are you on baseball, Brother K? Because 'strike' would also fit.

Well, thistles are grand - some people even eat the fleshy bit around the 'choke' - it's a relative of artichoke, anyway - so perhaps you could grow artichokes there. Or perhaps you need a couple of goats to eat back the thistles (and any garbage that might be in reach) and... um... enrich the soil? That would be the permaculture way: if you have slugs, don't get rid of them - get ducks! Ducks'll eat the slugs and you get the duck, and the eggs. And again, the soil will be enriched. Snapdragons and pansies - sounds like my grandmother's country garden!

What links the following: cleave, oversight, to lease, inflammable? Can you add any more words similarly linked?

By the bedside I've got The Allotment Handbook. I'm learning how to grow food! The Lore of the Land by Jacqueline Simpson and Jennifer Westwood. This is basically an encyclopedia of English folklore, county by county. It's great, but it's one for dipping into (I was wondering if there's something similar for the US... does anyone know?) Seafaring Lore and Legend by Peter D. Jeans. Fascinating stories, but his writing style is terribly lame. Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Bendigo and I are reading her aloud - she's much funnier that way. And... hmmm, I don't have anything to read.

I can't apply this term to any human being. I'm willing to say that people do evil things, but not that they are evil. I equate 'objective evil' pretty much with pain and suffering - which exists everywhere in the material world, as all living things suffer, even without anyone's deliberate actions causing it or inflicting it. There is quite enough of that in the world to keep us all busy, and so much the worse when our actions increase it or allow it to go unchecked when it could be prevented. And then there is the temptation to do evil, to inflict it on others, or to shrug off the evils which others suffer and which we could do something about. I read a book a few years ago which pointed out that the Lord's prayer seems to make a similar distinction: deliver us from evil (ie, protect us from evil outside ourselves), and lead us not into temptation (let us not be tempted to do evil). Outside and in. I was bowled over by that, (especially as it was a book about JRR Tolkien - but Tolkien was of course a devout Roman Catholic, and wrote part of The Two Towers while meditating on the Lord's Prayer, according to his letters).

We got an allotment in March so we've been spending a lot of time digging! And what a change in world view - when I hear the weather forecast is rain I'm delighted. Not sure whether everyone knows about allotments? We have them in the UK and I think the Dutch and Belgians have them as well - not sure about anyone else. City councils are mandated to keep some land available for citizens to rent very cheaply to grow food on. So for £26 per year, Bendigo and I have the use of 250 sq metres of good rich earth just up the road from us. Even better, there's already a shed on it and three mature fruit trees - two apples and a plum. The apple blossom is coming on and is a fantastic creamy dark red. There are lots of robins (English ones are smaller than the US version), blackbirds, chaffinches and more... but the pigeons are a nuisance. So... we're in a bit of a dash to get as much of it dug over and planted as we can. Some of it is very overgrown - hasn't been dug for a few years, I'd say, and full of couch grass. Anyway, I've planted blueberries, blackcurrant bushes, strawberries, garlic, onions, potatoes, peas, carrots and I'm starting on corn and beans, broccoli and an asparagus bed... plus some wild flowers for the insects.

Hey Stormy, wishing you all the very best. Damn, too many people I like are spending too much time in hospitals just lately.