Direly diacritical: a rant.

Look, why can't I have a double-shift key that I can program to give me my own choice of extra letters?

I mean, it'd save me, ooh, at least a minute a day if I could type ē,ó,Ɣ,æ, and ð with a couple of strokes of my keyboard instead of having to open a WORD document, select a drop-down menu, rummage through a chart of diacritical marks (you know, the things most people call accents) and then cut-and-paste them.

Oh, and while I'm here, some labels to stick on the keys would be nice, too, so I could remember where I've left the flipping cedilla.

Word To Use Today: diacritical. This word comes from the Greek diakritikos, serving to distinguish, from krinein, to separate.

Yes, I know, diakritikos should really have a line over the third i. 

Look, imagine it if it bothers you, okay?

Nuts and Bolts: leetspeak.

How do you prove you're one of the elite?

Yes, okay, your leather jacket, tiara, or accent might do it: but what if you're online?

Well, then you might use leet, otherwise known as leetspeak, or 1337.

Do you see the connection between the word leet and the numbers  1337? Because that's how leetspeak works. It's used chiefly by computer gamers and hackers, and it's a formalised way of mangling words to prove membership of the in-crowd. 

I, for instance, am a n00b at this - a newcomer, or newbie - but there are those who can converse in leetspeak quite fluently. There's even a web-comic called Megatokyo which has characters who speak it.

Leet-tweaks include putting -x0r on the end of a word instead of     -er. -ed might be replaced with 'd, or just the d by itself. An & sign means and, so b& means banned - and, as a further layer of difficulty, it might be written b7 instead, because the & and the 7 are typed using the same key.

There's lots of playfulness, creativity, and showing-off in leet: the use of 1_1 to represent the letter U, for instance isn't either easy or time-saving, but it does display ingenuity. Leetspeak also positively enjoys exploiting what some people call grammatical and spelling errors.  

Clever? Yes, certainly. Original? Well, I don't know. Is leet so very different from the old LEROY WOZ ERE? Or backslang? 

I'm not sure leet is quite so ground-breaking, after all.

Word To Use Today: leet. It's short for elite, which comes from the Old French eslit, which means chosen, from the Latin ēligere to elect.

Thing Definitely To Be Tomorrow: frugal.

Oh, to be frugal!

How cleansed we'll be from vain possessions which clog our every view!

How fit from shunning taxis! How charged with vital sparks from fasts unbroken save by roots carved into mermaids' hair and berries sour as sin!

How sweet the world when nourished by our wealth unselfish spent!

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes! How full of vim and mental clearness we will be...

...tomorrow.

(Hey, bung us that bit of pie, will you?


photo from Rei at English Wikipedia

Thanks.)

Thing Definitely To Be Tomorrow: frugal. This word comes from the Latin frūgālis, from frūgī, temperate or useful, from frux, fruit.

Spot the Frippet: something tawdry.

We're looking for something cheap, showy, and of poor quality, here, but that's so easy that it'd be much more of a challenge to go an hour without spotting something tawdry.

If that's the way you'd like to do it, I'd suggest a walk in the countryside, or a long look at the sea, the clouds, or the stars - or, on the other hand, you could take yourself round a big department store like Harrods.

Whatever you see there, it certainly won't be cheap.

Spot the Frippet: something tawdry. Ethelthryth, also known as Etheldrida or Audrey, was a queen of both Northumbria and the English Fens in the 600s. She received the city of Ely as a wedding gift and is now its patron saint. She was twice married but never shared a bed with a man, which she managed by means of persuasion, flight, a miraculous tide, and an equally miraculous staff which grew into an ash tree.



She died on 23rd June 679, and a fair in Ely was held annually on this date in her honour. 

The word tawdry is a shortened form of Audrey, so the quality of the good and prizes on offer can't have been any higher than at fairs nowadays.

Sunday Rest: nisgul. Word Not To Use Today.

As anyone not entirely allergic to fantasy fiction must know, a nazgûl is one of the nine really extremely nasty sorcerer-kings in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. They have a habit of flying about on pterodactyl-like things, have killer breath, are only sort-of alive, are under the influence of  that source of immortal cruelty and evil Sauron, and are generally predatory and unwelcome.

Altogether not the people you'd ask to your next barbecue.

So, to nisgul. It's a sadly unusable word because it's bound to get confused with nazgûl, but when you remember that JRR Tolkien was brought up in the Midlands of England, prime nisgul territory, it still makes me smile. 

Word Not To Use Today: nisgul. This word is, delightfully, a Midlands English dialect word for the smallest and weakest bird in a brood of chickens.



This Madagascan ant, by the way, is called Tetramorium nazgul. 

And I wouldn't want to invite that at my barbecue, either.

Saturday Rave: ging gang goolie.

On 29 July 1907 Sir Robert Baden-Powell set up a camp for boys on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, England. He charged £1 for the public school boys and 3s 6d for the others (a public school in Britain is a particularly old and famous one for which you pay fees to attend). This camp is regarded as the beginning of the Scout movement.

The Scout movement has many fine principles and, I'm sure, does a lot of good. I was both a Brownie and a Guide and quite enjoyed it, especially the bonkers bits of which there were many. Examples included dancing round a plastic toadstool, and an odd way of welcoming strangers where we had to squat down in a circle, then repeatedly half-rise to our feet while hooting like an owl before suddenly jumping up, clapping our hands, and shouting welcome welcome welcome.

An odd way to greet people, to be sure, though I can't remember anyone actually running out screaming.

The best thing of all about being a Brownie or a Guide, though, was the singing. 

Some of it was educational: 

Oh you can't go to heaven (oh you can't go to heaven)
In a baked bean tin (in a baked bean tin)
'Cos a baked bean tin ('cos a baked bean tin)
'Sgot baked bins in ('sgot baked beans in).

But lots of it was utter gorgeous nonsense. 

Ging gang goolie goolie goolie goolie watcha
Ging gang goo, ging gang goo.

Ging gang goolie goolie goolie goolie goolie watcha
Ging gang goo, ging gang goo.

Hayla, oh hayla shayla, oh hayla shayla, shayla, oh-ho.
Hayla, oh hayla shayla, oh hayla shayla, shayla, oh.

Shally wally, shally wally, shally wally, shally wally,
Oompah, oompah, oompah, oompah.

This was hugely liberating, though why I have no idea at all. I should imagine it's partly the tune, which has been said to be from Mozart's Symphony No 1*. 

Word To Use Today: goo. It is said this word for a thick sticky substance was made up in the 1900s, but from where it came isn't clear. It might even be the case that the song got there first.

By the way, pleasingly, the song was designed to be complete nonsense in all languages.

*Mozart's Symphony No 1 is well worth listening to (especially when you consider that Mozart was eight when he write it) though it doesn't, as far as I can spot, include the tune to Ging gang goolie.

Word To Use Today: ruche (or rouche).

Here's a good word to say: ruche (it's basically French, so you say it roosh).

It's a lovely vroom of a word - like a car in wet weather - but, perhaps sadly, it's actually a clothes thing.

A ruche can be a strip of gathered or pleated fabric used as a decoration on an item of clothing, or, if you're still living in the eighteenth century (and there are those) then it's a sort of mini ruff worn round the neck.


Landgravine Victoria of Hesse-Rotenburg

Ruching is when you sew lines of parellel stitches, possibly, but not necessarily, using the very thin elastic called shirring elastic, so you end up with an area of gathered fabric:


ruched dress by Jean-Paul Gaultier

Sadly, at the moment you probably have to be female to wear ruching, though actually...

...perhaps Messrs Barnier and Davis should set an example of flexibility and show us some ruching at the next round of Brexit talks.

...though actually perhaps not.

Word To Use Today: ruche. This word came from France, where it means beehive, in the 1800s. I do not understand this at all. Before that it came from the Latin rūsca, the bark of a tree, from some Celtic language.