Where HAS this month gone? I think it vanished down the same rabbit-hole my good intentions scampered off to... I *was* going to try to write an entry daily on weekdays. Sigh. And I was going to select, trim down, and post some of my weekend vacation pics, too. Sigh. Well, perhaps time for those later, still.
A quick entry then, at least, so the month's not a total loss.
I came across an amusing little bit on my Forgotten English page-a-day calendar today related to the rhyme of the months ("Thirty days hath September / April, June, and November...", which is as far as anyone ever seems to remember, after which they add something about "except for February, which is short and weird and so on.")
To begin with, the rhyme goes back to 16th century England (wow... that far back? Well, it would explain the "hath," wouldn't it?). And it seems the ending has *always* given people a spot of trouble-- several different couplets (or quatrains, even) have been appended to the first two lines.
Mr. Kacirk writes:
"One that is similar to the modern version [what IS the modern version, you ask? Good question. See above-- I'll try to get back to you on that.] went, "February has twenty-eight alone / And all the rest have thirty-one." Another went:
"All the rest have thirty-one
Excepting February alone,
Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
Till leap year gives it twenty-nine.""
(I rather like this second ending, except for the way that it highlights how glaringly unpoetic and arrhythmic the word "February" is.)
And, because my brain is preceding the rest of me into the land of Nod, I can't remember if I posted this little gem before or not, so if you've seen it before, I apologize for failing to offer fresh provender for your jaded linguistic appetites. Verbal Vestigia is a cute little (and I do mean "little") wordlist of words that no longer seem to exist independently of the cliched phrases they're a part of (or, as the page itself puts it, "Words Hanging On By A Single Phrase"). As I'm often guilty of using antiquated terms or constructions in my writing (and hey, in my speaking, at times-- and doesn't that get me some funny looks?), I've thought of starting a wordlist like this myself from time to time (with a slightly different emphasis-- words that are no longer used without their pre- or suffixes, such as "ruth[less]" or "[over]weening") so I was happy to find it.
(That's me. Woman of asides, tonight. Ah, well, perhaps I'll do better next month.)
(Oh, and speaking of asides-- Anansi Boys is going to be coming out at the top spot on the NY Times Best Seller list next week. Yay, Neil!!! And well worth it... I'm glad I recently purchased a couple of his books-on-CD, because after reading the book in one gulp while I was home sick, I'm left with the vaguely cheated feeling of being *done*, and hence deprived of Neil-quality writing until he pens another one, woe is me. And I'm starting to *seriously* think about attempting to drag a friend to the Lower East Side this weekend to see Mirrormask...)
(Oh, and in case you really have no idea what I was blathering about just now, or how I know, here's the pertinent bit from Neil Gaiman's own blog (thanks, Matt!):
-----
"To answer a question that's started coming in, the ANANSI BOYS at Number One thing will be on next week's list (to be published on the 9th of October 2005) -- right now, the list is this one -- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/books/bestseller/1002besthardfiction.html.
"You know, I don't generally stop to reflect, and am, to the exclusion of most other things, rather exhausted right now, all things considered, but I suspect that I'll always look back on this week as being one of the especially good ones -- it's not every week that you have a big budget movie start shooting on the Monday (I see from Beowulf's imdb that they've got a few more cast names up, including John Malkovich as Unferth), learn that your novel has gone to number one on the Times list on the Wednesday, and have the little film you made come out on the Friday. It's got to be special.
"It's probably why I'm smiling. Well, that or the lingering aftereffects of the champagne.")
-----
(Oh, and yes, this is a deliberate plug. Big plug. Excellent book. Go read. My sole complaint is that it left me with "Yellow Bird" stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Damn you, Neil.)
(And just because I can, have another completely pointless parenthetical comment. :D )
Posted by gris at September 30, 2005 11:55 PM