Categories
Writing

Blue Funky Good Egg does the Nitty-Gritty

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’ve had the blue funks all week, not that any of you could tell with my usual light and even-handed writing and sunny, calm temperament. This in spite of some good news about one of my domains that I’m just waiting final action on before *spilling the beans.

Having the blue funks isn’t a bad thing, but I have things to do and places to go and no time for being blue funky, so I’m pulling out all the stops this weekend to eliminate it: classic rock n’ roll, old black & white science fiction movies, cooking a nice meal, and walking in the rain.

As I was writing this, I wondered if the phrase ‘blue funk’ survived international borders. For instance, would it mean the same in the UK, in South Korea, Australia, or South Africa? How about next door in Canada?

Out of curiosity I did my usual when I’m trying to discover the meaning of a particular phrase: typed the phrase in quotes and the word ‘phrase’ into Google, and the first site that showed up is the World Wide Words page for the word funk, including the associated phrases and derivatives, such as funky. According to the author of this site, Michael Quinion, blue funk means different things in Britain then the US. In the US, a blue funk means being dejected, or slightly depressed. However, in the UK a blue funk is a state of fear or panic.

(Just as a point of clarification for my British readers, but I am neither panicky, nor in a state of fear.)

Exploring further in this intriguing site, I found this article on other odd duck phrases: “good egg” and “nitty-gritty”. According to Quinion, the British Home Office minister, John Denham, used the term “nitty-gritty” in a speech, and was chastised by members of the audience for using a racially offensive term. The Guardian investigated this and found that the police in Britain can’t use terms such as “nitty-gritty” and “good egg” because of possible connections with racial slurs such as “egg and spoon”.

Quinion wrote:

 

While sensitivity over language is not inherently bad, sometimes political correctness passes from needful consideration into a parallel world of misunderstanding and mealy-mouthedness. These days, it seems even PCs have to be PC. The chances of a British policeman using the phrase good egg in conversation with a member of the public is roughly the same as his pursuing an outfangthief or enforcing the rules on the right to turbary.

The terms “good egg” and “nitty gritty” are racially offensive? But I’ve used the both more than once. This deserved more investigation, so I searched on nitty-gritty as a phrase and found another article on the incident at the Telegraph, and this frankly humorous EZ Board thread, demonstrating what happens when a fact of this nature connects up with the loose free association typical of these types of sites.

However, back to more serious issues, including my use of a racial slur all these years. From the EZ Board discussion, someone brought up an association of “nitty-gritty” with the slave trade. Further Google investigation of nitty-gritty in association “slave trade” brought up this BBC News transcript of the investigation of the use of this term by the Denham. According to John Ayto, author of the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang:

What it is supposed be is that how the story goes is that nitty-gritty originated as a term for the grit that accumulated in the bilges of slave ships and that therefore it has particularly painful connotations to Afro-Americans and to Blacks in general. But, as I said, that may be true, but I have never seen any evidence that it is true so the case remains open as far as I can see.

(From the transcript of the interview, I also found out that the phrase “rule of thumb” is from an old English law that men couldn’t beat their wives with rods thicker than the width of their thumbs, but according to Quinion, this is most likely urban legend. However, it most likely also couldn’t be used by the British police.)

Anyway, back to good eggs and the nitty gritty scandal. Quinlian summarized the incident with:

 

The matter became more convoluted the following morning, when John Denham wrote to the Guardian saying that he had checked most carefully and had established that there was no list of banned words in the police force. The Guardian report hadn’t said there was, but that officers could face a charge of breaching the codes on tolerance if anyone complained, a more subtle form of control that requires officers to self-censor every word (and yet still leaves them open to frivolous or malicious complaints).

Amid confusion and denials, the main loser here seems to be the English language.

And there you have it — a little light reading for a Saturday morning. And be careful what you say out there: Someone is Listening to you.

*spilling the beans (from Phrase Finder):

“When votes were taken in Greece, white beans indicated positive votes and black beans negative. Votes had to be unanimous, so if the collector ‘spilled the beans’ before the vote was complete and a black bean was seen, the vote was halted.”

Categories
Just Shelley Photography Weblogging

Threads

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m in the process of moving my poem/photograph pairs to Paths: The Book of Colors, replacing the existing content. I really like the design and layout of the pages, and didn’t want the effort to go to waste. I believe that the design and the name are appropriate fits for my continuing explorations in matching poems to photographs.

Also, I wanted to recommend an excellent article on weblogging. Best I’ve read. Doc doesn’t care for it.

Finally, Allan is taking what could be a long break to focus on his writing and photography. His decision is an excellent one, and I wish for him fun adventures, as well as success with his new efforts. But I’m going to miss him.

Update: Doc clarified that he liked some aspects of the article, didn’t like others, and also pointed out another post on same.

Categories
Just Shelley

Self Image

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Not wanting to embarrass him, but how extraordinary, how uncanny that Jonathon posts a photo of Audrey Hepburn at his site, when I was thinking about her yesterday as I walked past ponds, surface water unrippled by winds or the movement of fish; smooth as glass, and as reflective as mirrors.

vtl_14.jpgA few years back, I was talking with a person who was/is a good friend. For some reason the conversation rolled around to Audrey Hepburn. My friend, who I also had a little secret attraction for — just a tiny bit, more harmless than not, and not something I took seriously — talked about Hepburn’s style, her slim and elegant appearance, her acting talent, her role in the classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He loved everything about her.

I can’t help but agree with my friend on everything he said about Hepburn — she was a unique and beautiful woman, as warm and generous and classy as she was elegant. But I grew up in a generation of woman living in the shadow of Hepburn, that impossible silhouette. My admiration and respect for her will always be tinged by a little resentment, and a little regret.

I imagine I’m not the only little girl that dreamed of dressing up in an elegant gown, floating serenely and elegantly, willow thin, through a crowd of people who parted in front of her. How bitter the reality for most, and lest you think this leaves you when you grow older, Ha! Think again. When the shop windows in San Francisco filled with the gowns for the city’s famous Black and White Ball, I am ashamed to admit how many hours I spent in front of the windows day dreaming. And I’m 48, supposedly too old for such nonsense.

I’ve long been fascinated by Dorothea’s frankness with her body shape. Frank, blunt, and in your face: I am fat she writes, and you can almost see the glare of her eyes peering out at the pages, defying you to murmer polite disagreement. Of course, she’s just as likely to bluntly and frankly take on any number of issues that leave one feeling as if there might have been a small strip of skin ripped from one’s butt, but I do admire her frankness about her looks.

For one reason or another I’ve gained weight over the winter, too much weight. Add to this with some health challenges past and current, and I find myself trying to see the tall Amazon that I was years ago in the plump, comfortable-seeming woman in the mirror today. This is not a woman who will ever wear a satin dress nipped in at the waist and hugging thin hips as it falls and flows past me on the ground; my shoulders bared, and my hair upswept.

I’ve always thought it was remarkably unfair that I was born tall, but not willowy. At one time I was a size 10, which for someone 5′ 11 1/2”, is quite slim. Too slim my doctor thought, and he was right. It was not a healthy weight for me. I am a curvy person, with rounded parts, but who can still be fit and healthy. Still dance, but not in hip hugging satin. If I had an ideal size, it would probably be size 16, which is comfortable for someone my height. Comfortable, but not willowy.

I’m not that size 16 now, though I am working on it, and not just to meet society’s standards of ‘beauty’. I couldn’t anyway, because aside from my height and green eyes (of which I am ashamed to admit, I am vain of), I’m afraid there is nothing out of the ordinary about me, now. No if I’m losing weight it’s because hiking is so very important to me, and excess weight is not only a hinderance, it’s a danger when one is hiking more difficult terrain. I’m not talking about just having a heart attack or anything like that — I’m talking getting into places that the extra weight makes it difficult to get out of, not to mention the upset to one’s balance. So I’m working on getting my weight down, but it will never be to a point when I can wear satin and costume jewelry with any flair. Khaki and shirts. One piece suits.

How odd — both men and women fixate on the ideal woman. Men because they want her, and women because they want to be like her. I wonder if men think about what they would like to be? Do they have ideal men in mind, that they compare themselves to?

I know for myself, when I think of an ‘ideal man’, I tend to think of a person who has a great sense of humor, is very patient, kind, open, affectionate, romantic, has a love and passion of the outdoors, music, movies, cooking, writing, travel, and photography. And who adores me. Of course, my list is unrealistic, but at least physical appearance doesn’t enter into the picture.

Perhaps that’s the thing — as both men and women get older, we learn to look beyond the physical to the what a person is, not how they look. However, if this is so, how come so many older guys marry (much) younger women?

Recently I’ve been reminded that physically my life is changing, and is going to continue to change, perhaps even quite drastically. This brought out my shade of Audrey that I keep within me, and she walked beside me yesterday as I peered into pools and quietly compared the fantasy and the reality. But then I got distracted as I always do, by an egret flying past, angry at me for disturbing it. You don’t know disdain until you’ve been treated to egret disdain.

Eventually in my walk I left the glassy ponds, and I discovered this fascinating bridge called The Chain of Rocks Bridge, and I crossed it, looking down into the muddy waters of the Mississippi, where I couldn’t see anything except what was floating past.

I will take a life of egrets and bridges over a dream of a satin dress.

me

Categories
Photography Writing

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful —
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath, “Mirror”

 

miss3.jpg

Categories
Photography Writing

Egrets

Where the path closed
down and over,
through the scumbled leaves,
fallen branches,
through the knotted catbrier,
I kept going. Finally
I could not
save my arms
from thorns; soon
the mosquitoes
smelled me, hot
and wounded, and came
wheeling and whining.
And that’s how I came
to the edge of the pond:
black and empty
except for a spindle
of bleached reeds
at the far shore
which, as I looked,
wrinkled suddenly
into three egrets – – –
a shower
of white fire!
Even half-asleep they had
such faith in the world
that had made them – – –
tilting through the water,
unruffled, sure,
by the laws
of their faith not logic,
they opened their wings
softly and stepped
over every dark thing.

Mary Oliver, “Egrets”

 

miss15.jpg