It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him. George Bernard Shaw, introduction to Pygmalion (1913) Alan Ross was Professor of Linguistics at Birmingham University when he published this paper in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, the journal of the Modern Language Society of Helsinki, although The Dictionary of National … Continue reading Alan S.C. Ross: Linguistic Class Indicators In The Present Day (1954)
Four English Words Derived From Gaelic
Ach, he’s feeling the shortage of whisky. We’re all feeling it, Sergeant. Never mind. Good things will come again, and we’ll have whisky galore. Uisge beatha gu leòir. Compton Mackenzie, Whisky Galore (1947) I’ve written before about the relative dearth of Scottish Gaelic vocabulary in Scottish English. Instead, much of the difference in vocabulary between … Continue reading Four English Words Derived From Gaelic
RealSpace Models 1/96 Apollo Block II Command/Service Module (Again): Part 4
So last time I left you with a cliff-hanger. Sorry about that—the opportunity so rarely presents itself on this blog. You may recall that things were coming along well with my re-do of the paintwork on this kit, and I’d got to the point of masking off some of the RCS thrusters on the Command … Continue reading RealSpace Models 1/96 Apollo Block II Command/Service Module (Again): Part 4
Blue Supermoon: Part 2
We recently had a blue supermoon (on 31 August 2023). If you saw it, did you think it was super? Me neither. In my previous post, I wrote about blue moons—what they are, why they happen—and in this post I aim to do the same for supermoons. Supermoons happen when a full moon occurs at a … Continue reading Blue Supermoon: Part 2
Blue Supermoon: Part 1
On 31 August 2023 we’re going to have a blue supermoon, which will be neither particularly blue, nor particularly super, though to read some of the media coverage of these events, you might expect to see something like the image above. So I thought I might write a bit about blue moons (this post) and … Continue reading Blue Supermoon: Part 1
Two Science Fiction Histories
What does seem clear is that there was something in the early lives of nearly all the published writers in the group that isolated them from their contemporaries. Blish, Pohl, Michel, Merril, and I were only children. Pohl, Blish, Wilson, Lowndes, Merril and Michel lost one parent each in childhood, by death or divorce. Wilson … Continue reading Two Science Fiction Histories
Hill Lists: “On Top Of The World”
I haven’t written about hill lists for a while, and after writing about the classic Scottish hill lists, and dealing in separate posts with the Corbetts and the Donalds, I’m overdue to write about the third (and original) classic, the Munros. But instead, I’m veering off into the long grass with this one, which deals … Continue reading Hill Lists: “On Top Of The World”
Strathglass
I’ve been meaning to write about Strathglass for a couple of years now, but have never got around to it. This post therefore merges three separate visits to the same location, marked by the little red dot in the middle of my map, above. So you’ll encounter a strange mixture of photographs from spring and … Continue reading Strathglass
RealSpace Models 1/96 Apollo Block II Command/Service Module (Again): Part 3
Last time, I was contemplating how to add feedhorns to my High Gain Antennae from The Aerospace Place. The solution I eventually came up with was to use some 0.25mm fibreoptic strands, and to melt the ends into a blob by holding them close to a hot soldering iron. Sprayed white, these gave me something … Continue reading RealSpace Models 1/96 Apollo Block II Command/Service Module (Again): Part 3
Fulsome
ˈfʊlsəm fulsome: offensive to good taste, by reason of being done to excess A news organization has an obligation—and it is an obligation—to report news fulsomely, wholesomely and without fear or favor. That’s what Fox News has always done and that’s what Fox News will always do. Lachlan Murdoch quoted in The Guardian (13 March … Continue reading Fulsome