I've finally gotten around to tracking down the connection between the Spanish word "bosque," as in the woods in the Rio Grande valley, and the English word "bosky," which I came across in Milton or Spenser or somebody and which also means wooded or bushy. I did what I could, but I had to rely much more on wikis than I would have liked. So I may have to correct some of this later.
My first guess was that the English was borrowed from the Spanish, or maybe both of them were descended from Latin. But it looks like that's not so! I think I've found one of those rare instances where the Latin and the Spanish both borrowed from Old Germanic. According to this source
there's not much agreement where the old Germanic term came from, and
one expert thinks it originally came from the Latin "buxus," box tree; but nobody else thinks so.
"Bosque" apparently comes by way of Catalan/Provencal/Old French, "bosc," from the proposed Germanic "busk," meaning brush or thicket. The Latin "boscus, bosci" is a medieval (not classical) word meaning wood or wooded area. Fun fact: descendant words are "ambuscade," meaning an ambush set up in the woods, and "oboe," which is -- a woodwind!
I would like to see what the OED has to say about the English "bosky." Merriam-Webster just ties it to Middle English "bush" or "bosk," and I want more details. The whole business about the SH and SK at any rate makes sense - English apparently did that a lot. You see the same thing in "shirt" and "skirt," which are exactly cognates only one of them had more Norse influence. I think. If I'm remembering.
Monday, May 06, 2013
Small doings
Quote of the day: "Edmund is a bad pentaceratops." Meg
Me: "Edmund isn't a pentaceratops at all, bad or otherwise." He's her friend.
Meg: "Yes he is! He's a pentaceratops!"
Usually she's better at identifying dinosaurs than that.
In non-dinosaur news, we had macaroni and cheese with salad for lunch. Meg ate her salad happily and I had to force her to try a bite of the macaroni.
In other news, my summer shoe collection has kept shrinking. One can't really wear boots year-round, and I keep outgrowing or wearing out my old sneakers and sandals. My pink flowered Converses bit the dust ages ago and these days the whole brand is too narrow for me. I looked at Keds, which do come in cute gingham print, but they weren't that inspiring. Mostly what's available right now is neon running shoes, which would be fine if I liked running, looking like I go running, or neon. I'd really rather have something a little more... discreet. Dressy. Versatile. So today I found a lovely pair of leopard-and-gold sneakers. I saw them and decided they spoke to my soul AND would match pretty much all my casual clothes, which is a little terrifying, but there you have it. They were on clearance. I can't imagine why.
Me: "Edmund isn't a pentaceratops at all, bad or otherwise." He's her friend.
Meg: "Yes he is! He's a pentaceratops!"
Usually she's better at identifying dinosaurs than that.
In non-dinosaur news, we had macaroni and cheese with salad for lunch. Meg ate her salad happily and I had to force her to try a bite of the macaroni.
In other news, my summer shoe collection has kept shrinking. One can't really wear boots year-round, and I keep outgrowing or wearing out my old sneakers and sandals. My pink flowered Converses bit the dust ages ago and these days the whole brand is too narrow for me. I looked at Keds, which do come in cute gingham print, but they weren't that inspiring. Mostly what's available right now is neon running shoes, which would be fine if I liked running, looking like I go running, or neon. I'd really rather have something a little more... discreet. Dressy. Versatile. So today I found a lovely pair of leopard-and-gold sneakers. I saw them and decided they spoke to my soul AND would match pretty much all my casual clothes, which is a little terrifying, but there you have it. They were on clearance. I can't imagine why.
Iron Man 3
Iron Man 3 is out! Jonathan and I cleverly arranged our date night to fall last Friday so we could go watch it on opening night. It was the first decent movie to come out pretty much since The Hobbit, so we expected it to be busy, and it was. We had to sit far enough forward that I couldn't actually see the entire screen at one time. But we enjoyed it.
I wouldn't say it was groundbreaking, but they did a very respectable job. We had character growth, an enemy from Stark's past come back to haunt him, a double agent, and some fun interactions between Stark and a kid. The villain had a slightly more fictional superpower than usual, enough that I had to actually suspend disbelief instead of saying what cool technology it was, but it was a superpower calculated to give Iron Man plenty of trouble. The plot was reasonably tight. There were lots of pretty explosions. Also, if your idea of villainous revenge is to give someone your evil superpower, don't be surprised when that doesn't quite work out for you. Please try to think these things through.
Probably the biggest change to the Marvel movie-verse to come out of this movie was the answer to that offhand question of Captain America's from The Avengers: "Take away that suit, and what are you?" Of course Stark had a smart-aleck answer in the moment, but at the end of Iron Man 3 he had a real answer. It turned out to be a pretty good present for Pepper, too.
We didn't stay till the end of the credits. Did we miss a scene, anybody?
I wouldn't say it was groundbreaking, but they did a very respectable job. We had character growth, an enemy from Stark's past come back to haunt him, a double agent, and some fun interactions between Stark and a kid. The villain had a slightly more fictional superpower than usual, enough that I had to actually suspend disbelief instead of saying what cool technology it was, but it was a superpower calculated to give Iron Man plenty of trouble. The plot was reasonably tight. There were lots of pretty explosions. Also, if your idea of villainous revenge is to give someone your evil superpower, don't be surprised when that doesn't quite work out for you. Please try to think these things through.
Probably the biggest change to the Marvel movie-verse to come out of this movie was the answer to that offhand question of Captain America's from The Avengers: "Take away that suit, and what are you?" Of course Stark had a smart-aleck answer in the moment, but at the end of Iron Man 3 he had a real answer. It turned out to be a pretty good present for Pepper, too.
We didn't stay till the end of the credits. Did we miss a scene, anybody?
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Sam Vimes would be proud
If you saw me this winter, I was probably wearing my brown cowboy boots. Just a guess. They were my birthday present and cost about four times what I would normally spend on a pair of shoes. I wore them everywhere, every day, from church to stomping around in the woods. They were real leather and I conditioned them properly, and when spring rolled around, they still looked practically new.
Compare this to a pair of ankle boots I got while I was expecting Meg. They're cheapy black plastic pleather stuff, a half-size bigger than usual with a gentle wedge and the softest, squishiest footbed ever, so they were perfect. I wore them for about those six months, put them away, and when I got out my maternity wear this spring, noticed the outer layer was peeling everywhere. They're still comfortable, but they look awful.
Terry Pratchett, if you've read his books, calls this the Sam Vimes Principle. Vimes says you can spend $10 a year every year for cheap shoes, or spend $100 up front and get a good pair that will still be going strong ten years later. I think I just proved the principle. I am so buying good boots from now on!
Compare this to a pair of ankle boots I got while I was expecting Meg. They're cheapy black plastic pleather stuff, a half-size bigger than usual with a gentle wedge and the softest, squishiest footbed ever, so they were perfect. I wore them for about those six months, put them away, and when I got out my maternity wear this spring, noticed the outer layer was peeling everywhere. They're still comfortable, but they look awful.
Terry Pratchett, if you've read his books, calls this the Sam Vimes Principle. Vimes says you can spend $10 a year every year for cheap shoes, or spend $100 up front and get a good pair that will still be going strong ten years later. I think I just proved the principle. I am so buying good boots from now on!
Update on life
I always forget just how much pregnancy brain afflicts pregnant mamas. I forget my shopping lists, and then when I get to the store I forget what I wrote on them and go up and down the aisles saying, "I think we needed applesauce..." I usually remember the coupons, though. I forget words, especially nouns, and Meg is always supplying them for me with tolerance. This evening Jonathan was telling me a story. I was listening, I really was, but I went straight from "...became a character in his own right..." to "...practicing Civil-War style medicine on him." I think I may have missed something. Fortunately he thought this was hilarious.
The other day I explained this phenomenon to the college girls at church as "The baby is eating my brains" and they just about died laughing.
Meg still takes a keen interest in Baby Junior, as we are referring to the new arrival until we discover which pronoun is appropriate. (Meg is still convinced he's a boy.) We had a mutually confusing conversation a couple days ago, when we were talking about grapes. She thought Baby Junior was in my tummy "eating grapes with his teef!" Nooooo, I said, Junior is too little to have teeth. I have to do the chewing for him. She just looked at me in disbelief. But she is definitely preparing for his arrival. She got out the stepstool and carefully arranged her stuffed animals on the highest shelves of the bookshelf so, she explained, he wouldn't be able to chew on them.
I'm so proud of Meg. She's fascinated by words and has almost got them figured out. She goes around saying, "Duck! D-d-d-d-duck starts with... D!" and "Say starts with A!" (True story.) If you show her a written word, she will rattle off the letters for you, D - U - C - K, and might be able to tell you what sound the first letter makes. If the word is accompanied by a picture, she's fabulous at reading the first letter and guessing the word: the other day she got "spaghetti" that way. We're practicing saying all the letter sounds and putting them together.
We also count things, anything and everything, and do simple addition problems. She was really solid on adding two fingers and two fingers, but when there were five fingers on one hand and three on the other, that was too hard. Sometimes we do addition out loud and sometimes I write it out for her in a proper equation. When Nana came for a visit yesterday, I hear they counted to a hundred and Meg noticed that for every new set of tens, the same digits recur in the same order. I think she's doing great.
The other day I explained this phenomenon to the college girls at church as "The baby is eating my brains" and they just about died laughing.
Meg still takes a keen interest in Baby Junior, as we are referring to the new arrival until we discover which pronoun is appropriate. (Meg is still convinced he's a boy.) We had a mutually confusing conversation a couple days ago, when we were talking about grapes. She thought Baby Junior was in my tummy "eating grapes with his teef!" Nooooo, I said, Junior is too little to have teeth. I have to do the chewing for him. She just looked at me in disbelief. But she is definitely preparing for his arrival. She got out the stepstool and carefully arranged her stuffed animals on the highest shelves of the bookshelf so, she explained, he wouldn't be able to chew on them.
I'm so proud of Meg. She's fascinated by words and has almost got them figured out. She goes around saying, "Duck! D-d-d-d-duck starts with... D!" and "Say starts with A!" (True story.) If you show her a written word, she will rattle off the letters for you, D - U - C - K, and might be able to tell you what sound the first letter makes. If the word is accompanied by a picture, she's fabulous at reading the first letter and guessing the word: the other day she got "spaghetti" that way. We're practicing saying all the letter sounds and putting them together.
We also count things, anything and everything, and do simple addition problems. She was really solid on adding two fingers and two fingers, but when there were five fingers on one hand and three on the other, that was too hard. Sometimes we do addition out loud and sometimes I write it out for her in a proper equation. When Nana came for a visit yesterday, I hear they counted to a hundred and Meg noticed that for every new set of tens, the same digits recur in the same order. I think she's doing great.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
The great sunscreen debate
I have an impressive friend. She fell in love with evidence-based health care, arranged her college career and now motherhood around learning to read studies and statistics, and she delights in figuring out what exactly the best and most recent research says on, say, using toothpaste for a child under two. Then she does it.
I bring this up because with the warm spring weather comes (a drumroll, please) sunscreen season! Sadly, I do not have the educational background or mental rigor left to actually inspect the studies on sunscreen use. I just have a naturally suspicious nature and the remnants of philosophical/theological education. This leads me to doubt whether I should slather my child with SPF 100 before going out to get the mail.
Quite apart from whether it's the best use of our time and money, I just wonder whether it's good to insist that every member of a population ritually put on commercially-produced chemicals daily. I saw a headline of a study saying that skin cancer rates have actually gone up since sunscreen use started. Because of the sunscreen? Because people thought it was okay to stay out way longer if they had sunscreen on? Because those people drank too many cokes and it made them more sensitive? Or was the headline completely bogus? I don't know.
This is the whole question of wisdom. How do I parent properly in a world of imperfect information and a whole lot of limits? My dad always said, "The only thing you can't go overboard on is Jesus Christ." He was specifically talking about theology, but I think the principle holds across pretty much everything. I think C. S. Lewis was getting at the same thing when he said some things are a duty to maybe die for, but not to live for - like serving in a war or practicing lifesaving. You may die for that duty, but it shouldn't consume your every waking thought and affection. And Aristotle, of course, was all about virtue being finding the golden middle path between falling off into error on either side.
I could refuse to sunscreen Meg, ever, and cover her with trendy coconut oil (all those health benefits!) so she could get really tan and smell like summer all the time. Or I could sunscreen her every morning just in case we poke our noses out of doors.
The best I've come to, and you might disagree, is that we put on sunscreen when we're going to be outside for a significant length of time. I figure, when experts discover that excessive sunscreen use causes [whatever], we won't have used it excessively. And in the meantime, we won't get many sunburns. Because nobody likes crunchy red skin.
I bring this up because with the warm spring weather comes (a drumroll, please) sunscreen season! Sadly, I do not have the educational background or mental rigor left to actually inspect the studies on sunscreen use. I just have a naturally suspicious nature and the remnants of philosophical/theological education. This leads me to doubt whether I should slather my child with SPF 100 before going out to get the mail.
Quite apart from whether it's the best use of our time and money, I just wonder whether it's good to insist that every member of a population ritually put on commercially-produced chemicals daily. I saw a headline of a study saying that skin cancer rates have actually gone up since sunscreen use started. Because of the sunscreen? Because people thought it was okay to stay out way longer if they had sunscreen on? Because those people drank too many cokes and it made them more sensitive? Or was the headline completely bogus? I don't know.
This is the whole question of wisdom. How do I parent properly in a world of imperfect information and a whole lot of limits? My dad always said, "The only thing you can't go overboard on is Jesus Christ." He was specifically talking about theology, but I think the principle holds across pretty much everything. I think C. S. Lewis was getting at the same thing when he said some things are a duty to maybe die for, but not to live for - like serving in a war or practicing lifesaving. You may die for that duty, but it shouldn't consume your every waking thought and affection. And Aristotle, of course, was all about virtue being finding the golden middle path between falling off into error on either side.
I could refuse to sunscreen Meg, ever, and cover her with trendy coconut oil (all those health benefits!) so she could get really tan and smell like summer all the time. Or I could sunscreen her every morning just in case we poke our noses out of doors.
The best I've come to, and you might disagree, is that we put on sunscreen when we're going to be outside for a significant length of time. I figure, when experts discover that excessive sunscreen use causes [whatever], we won't have used it excessively. And in the meantime, we won't get many sunburns. Because nobody likes crunchy red skin.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Friend bowling and zapping Peeps
It was ridiculously hot out today, so we went over to a friend's house and played on their slip 'n' slide. Meg took to it like a duck to water, running along the length through the sprinklers and giggling and falling over and getting soaked. She even invented a new game: when her friend ran along it, she tossed a ball at him. It uncannily hit him just wrong and knocked him down. She invented friend bowling!
In other news, this video inspired me to the crazy length of actually going out and buying Peeps and a chocolate bunny on 70% clearance, just so we could make Bye Bye Bunny s'mores. Peeps aren't precisely a food item, but they do grow massively in the microwave, which is hilarious. So we made s'mores last night. Meg was excited and called them "snores" until I pointed out to Jonathan how cute that was, at which point she frowned and clarified that they were really s'mores. S'more or snore, I was queasy so I couldn't try mine, and actually I'm not convinced any of us ate them judging by the number of Peep-infested plates I washed: but we all appreciated Peeps grown monstrous. It's the simple things in life.
In other news, this video inspired me to the crazy length of actually going out and buying Peeps and a chocolate bunny on 70% clearance, just so we could make Bye Bye Bunny s'mores. Peeps aren't precisely a food item, but they do grow massively in the microwave, which is hilarious. So we made s'mores last night. Meg was excited and called them "snores" until I pointed out to Jonathan how cute that was, at which point she frowned and clarified that they were really s'mores. S'more or snore, I was queasy so I couldn't try mine, and actually I'm not convinced any of us ate them judging by the number of Peep-infested plates I washed: but we all appreciated Peeps grown monstrous. It's the simple things in life.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Spring clothes
Spring has finally, finally, arrived here. I opened a window yesterday and (surprise!) found a very nice sunbeam. Being part cat, I immediately stretched out it, and spent most of Meg's naptime reading a magazine. It was a really good sunbeam.
I spent the rest of her naptime (on through dinnertime and past her bedtime) doing the Great Seasonal Clothes Swap, which involved getting out pretty much every item of clothing I own and either putting it into or out of a storage bin, mostly trying them on along the way. It was more exciting this year since I got out the maternity clothes. Yes, it's true! We are expecting a new arrival at the end of September. And, between junior and the pleasant weather, it was high time to get spring things out.
I spent the rest of her naptime (on through dinnertime and past her bedtime) doing the Great Seasonal Clothes Swap, which involved getting out pretty much every item of clothing I own and either putting it into or out of a storage bin, mostly trying them on along the way. It was more exciting this year since I got out the maternity clothes. Yes, it's true! We are expecting a new arrival at the end of September. And, between junior and the pleasant weather, it was high time to get spring things out.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
I hear it's just a stage
I'm actually not sure whether staying home and doing housework all day makes the house any cleaner, net, than going out and about. If we're out, at least the home mess stays stable. If we're in, all that Meggie energy gets channeled into her toys so that whichever room I clean, there's another one getting methodically turned into a disaster. We seem to generate more trash and laundry at home, too (especially during potty training), and I know I generate more dishes to wash if I cook.
Staying home and cleaning does change the distribution of the mess, though. Instead of dirty dishes I get tastefully assorted roomsful of dinosaurs, stuffed animals, and easter eggs, and the laundry baskets fill up with clean clothes rather than dirty. I guess that's worth it?
Staying home and cleaning does change the distribution of the mess, though. Instead of dirty dishes I get tastefully assorted roomsful of dinosaurs, stuffed animals, and easter eggs, and the laundry baskets fill up with clean clothes rather than dirty. I guess that's worth it?
Fish noses
Meg and I got some fish at Long John Silver's. It comes in large fillets, you know, so I cut it up. She and her stegosaurus liked the corner pieces especially well and called them the "fish noses."
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