Day to day on Symi

Word play coffee break

BBQ Niborio Symi Greece
Peppers, for no reason

Here’s a post for when you’re having a leisurely coffee break. It’s been a long time since we did some pointless wordplay on these pages, so today I thought I would stun you all with random thoughts on a random word or possibly two (I have to go and cook in a moment so not sure how long I will be staying around), and while stunning you with nonsense I might also stun you with some of Neil’s photos of Symi, as that word is in the title of this blog after all.

 

BBQ Niborio Symi Greece
Spring flower

I did think about dipping into ‘The Elements of Eloquence’ by Mark Forsyth  but then, after reading a little about Merism, Epistrophe and Epizeuxis I decide that he puts it so well there’s nothing more I can do to make it all make sense, except suggest you go and buy the book, if you are keen to improve your understanding of the English language that is. [And for those who may be wondering, Merism, Epistrophe and Epizeuxis are not the Three Graces, they are: Merism is when you don’t say what you are talking about and the example in the book is ‘ladies and gentlemen’ is a merism, for ‘people.’ Epistrophe is when you end sentences with the same word. Or end each clause with the same word, or end paragraphs with the same word. (So, basically, most pop songs.) And Epizeuxis is when you repeat a word immediately and in the same sense, for example, ‘Location. Location. Location.’]

 

BBQ Niborio Symi Greece
Pedi bay

So, now you know that (and there will be a test) we can move on to something less interesting. I love receiving books as gifts, and that’s not a hint, surprisingly, and for my birthday my mother sent me a book about collective nouns titled ‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ by Chloe Rhodes (appropriate to our location here on Symi I thought). What’s even better is that it’s a hardback book. (I just like the feel of them.) So, thanks to this gift we can have a little quiz here as I ask you if you know the collective nouns for the following random entries:

 

  1. A ? of gossips
  2. A ? of jurors
  3. A ? of harlots
  4. A ? of butlers
  5. A ? of cobblers (and it’s not ‘load’)
  6. And a rather nice one, A ? of fishermen

 

BBQ Niborio Symi Greece
Church on Rhodes

The answers are at the end of the blog. I was going to put them upside down, but then thought it might be difficult for those reading this on a desktop PC who would have to turn the monitor over; easy enough to do if you are reading on a Kindle (of kittens, by the way), but if you’re walking around with a device and get distracted you might trip (of goats). That’s why I applied some shrewdness (of apes) and didn’t want to make this too much of a labour (of moles) for you.

One day we may return to this book and do some more. That selection was from the People department, there are also animals, professions, religious callings and (other) exotic creatures to look forward to. My favourite has to be A worship of writers, of course.

BBQ Niborio Symi Greece
Lydia hotel, Rhodes

But back to the task in hand, a random word from my Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary (another hardback gift).

The letter of the day is ‘S’, and the first word that jumps out at me is Sabulous. Not Fabulous, though it is rather, sabulous means ‘gritty or sandy.’ So I guess you could stretch that and say that a Stieg Larsson novel is sabulous (as they are considered a gritty read) and that Olivia Newton John was no only fabulous but also sabulous when playing Sabulous in ‘Grease.’ (She played Sandy.) So, there you have it, lots of new words to ponder over today as you wonder where all this comes from and why you’ve sat and read it all. And finally, here, without the need to stand on your head, are the answers to the collective nouns quiz.

 

  1. A gaggle of gossips (Makes perfect sense to me, especially when at certain local watering holes.)
  2. A damning of jurors (Goes back to Magna Carta – buy the book for the fascinating derivation.)
  3. A herd of Harlots (Reminds me of: ‘You can lead a whore to water but you can’t make her think’, which is the punchline, but I can’t remember the body of the gag.)
  4. A draught of butlers (To do with a draught of wine, rather than leaving the door open.)
  5. A drunkship of cobblers (Drunkship being an out of use word for a group of drunk people. Poor cobblers.)
  6. A drift of fishermen (To do with, er, fishing techniques, apparently.)

And a worship of writers? (To do with ‘the established tyranny of patronage’ – Thomas Wharton 17th century.