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Jonathan
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« Reply #3060 on: 20:44:23, 22-09-2007 » |
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When I was at school, we had hours of fun at playtime sticking Goosegrass to one another! Horrible stuff!
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Best regards,
Jonathan
*********************************************
"as the housefly of destiny collides with the windscreen of fate..."
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thompson1780
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« Reply #3061 on: 20:47:52, 22-09-2007 » |
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I don't like the way that trains now arrive 'into' a station.
Tommo
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Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
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martle
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« Reply #3062 on: 22:18:45, 22-09-2007 » |
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Most American spellings, phrases, syntaxes etc. are closer to 'old' English usage and practice than modern English ones. So there.  |
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Green. Always green.
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #3063 on: 23:26:10, 22-09-2007 » |
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What seems to have happened was that some parts of a form of English spoken at the time of the Pilgrim Fathers became sort of fossilised in America, or something like that, anyway. English spelling wasn't fixed and immutable for a long time in England, after all - Dr Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 helped to stabilise it. I'm sure Shakespeare spelt "honour" in different ways. He certainly spelt words differently on different occasions. I've never actually checked to see whether "gotten", which now sounds very strange to English ears, was used by Shakespeare, but I'd be extremely surprised if it wasn't.
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« Last Edit: 23:39:47, 22-09-2007 by Mary Chambers »
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eruanto
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« Reply #3064 on: 23:32:31, 22-09-2007 » |
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Tolkien uses the form connexion, if I may throw that into the puddle.
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George Garnett
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« Reply #3065 on: 23:48:19, 22-09-2007 » |
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When I was at school, we had hours of fun at playtime sticking Goosegrass to one another! Horrible stuff!
Squirrel Grass was fiendishly good too for that sort of game particularly as you could throw it like a dart. A direct bunker-busting hit inside someone else's wellie boot so that it worked its way into their socks was an especial triumph. You could then follow it up with Goosegrass in a close quarters hit and run attack.  |
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« Last Edit: 23:50:04, 22-09-2007 by George Garnett »
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MabelJane
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« Reply #3066 on: 00:05:58, 23-09-2007 » |
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That grass reminds me of that "Grandmother, grandmother, JUMP out of bed!" game. Oh, sorry, not at all grumpy - and not being horrible to anyone either.  |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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George Garnett
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« Reply #3067 on: 00:15:06, 23-09-2007 » |
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That grass reminds me of that "Grandmother, grandmother, JUMP out of bed!" game. Oh, sorry, not at all grumpy - and not being horrible to anyone either. Played with Plantango lanceolata IIRC?  |
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« Last Edit: 08:39:19, 23-09-2007 by George Garnett »
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #3068 on: 00:15:38, 23-09-2007 » |
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What seems to have happened was that some parts of a form of English spoken at the time of the Pilgrim Fathers became sort of fossilised in America, or something like that, anyway. English spelling wasn't fixed and immutable for a long time in England, after all - Dr Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 helped to stabilise it. I'm sure Shakespeare spelt "honour" in different ways. He certainly spelt words differently on different occasions. I've never actually checked to see whether "gotten", which now sounds very strange to English ears, was used by Shakespeare, but I'd be extremely surprised if it wasn't.
"He was gotten in drink" ( Merry Wives of Windsor 1 iii) found by Googling (my Complete Works must still be in storage). Poor old William never even fixed upon a consistent spelling of his surname, so variant spellings of other words are only to be expected: not a mark of ignorance or poor education, simply standard practice for the time. I've mentioned before that words were quite often pronounced differently in his day, so that on occasion the spelling represents this difference: it's also the reason why some of the puns and wordplay now seem less convincing than they must have done to his contemporaries |
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #3069 on: 01:26:58, 23-09-2007 » |
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In the Prayer Book marriage service there used to be something about "cleaving only unto her/him", I think. The sticky weed that I call "goosegrass" is sometimes called "cleavers", because it sticks to everything.  I love the name for it that used to be common where I lived in Suffolk: sticky willy  And with regard to George's Plantango lanceolata during a long and boring sports day, someone showed me how to make the leaves curl up by pulling something that I still think of as a tendon although plants don't have tendons, surely? |
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #3070 on: 08:45:19, 23-09-2007 » |
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When I was at school, we had hours of fun at playtime sticking Goosegrass to one another! Horrible stuff!
Squirrel Grass was fiendishly good too for that sort of game particularly as you could throw it like a dart. A direct bunker-busting hit inside someone else's wellie boot so that it worked its way into their socks was an especial triumph. You could then follow it up with Goosegrass in a close quarters hit and run attack. You can tur I've never heard that called squirrel grass. We called it wild barley. If you put it in your sleeve it creeps up your arm in a tickly fashion. You can shoot the heads off plantains (plantango lanceolata), though I can't quite remember how, and aim them at your friends if you are feeling a bit Grumpy with them - except that nobody minds. |
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George Garnett
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« Reply #3071 on: 09:42:36, 23-09-2007 » |
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You can shoot the heads off plantains (plantango lanceolata), though I can't quite remember how, and aim them at your friends if you are feeling a bit Grumpy with them - except that nobody minds.
This is going to defeat my powers of description but I think what you did was tie a very loose loop in the stem some way down from the head and then, holding the bottom of the stem in one hand, flick that loop up the stem between the fingers of the other hand. The trick was so to arrange things that the loop closed just as it hit the base of the head - which then jumped off very satisfyingly. |
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #3072 on: 09:56:58, 23-09-2007 » |
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Yes, that sounds about right, George. Ah, these innocent(ish) childhood occupations, so different from Playstation.
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MabelJane
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« Reply #3073 on: 12:07:01, 23-09-2007 » |
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That grass reminds me of that "Grandmother, grandmother, JUMP out of bed!" game.
Played with Plantango lanceolata IIRC? No, we used a hairy grass like that one in the picture - you broke it off with a bit of stem, held it upright between your fingers on one hand, palm down, broke the top half of the grass flower off then slotted it back in place. On the word JUMP you clapped your palm with the other hand and the top half of the grass jumped up. It was really to see how high you could make it jump. And of course we used to make grass leaves scream too by holding 2 taut and blowing between them - just like an angry oboe! |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Andy D
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« Reply #3074 on: 15:34:14, 23-09-2007 » |
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And of course we used to make grass leaves scream too by holding 2 taut and blowing between them - just like an angry oboe!
I used to stretch a blade of grass by holding it between my 2 thumbs pressed edge to edge then blow into the gap - you got a wonderfully screechy single reed noise from it. Mind you, real oboes are pretty screechy IMO  |
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