Posted by Ed Kiser on April 11, 2010 at 10:03:49 user Kisered.
In Winter Holiday, Nancy has a jaw-ache, so Peggy came by herself in the Beckfoot rowboat to fetch the others to Beckfoot. There are several at the oars, facing backwards, while Peggy, as Captain, is seated in the stern, facing forwards. She can see where they are going, and is in charge of guiding the boat while the ones at the oars cannot see where they are going, so depend on the orders of the Captain. Peggy says, "Pull left" as a guiding order.
My question: "Whose left?" Since the ones at the oars and the one guiding the boat are facing in opposite directions, one's "left" is the other's "right".
It reminds me when Nancy was jotting down the semaphore code guide in Dick's notebook, that she stuck in a face in one of them, so you can see what direction they are facing. She said something to the effect that if you get that wrong, everything comes out all wrong.
It is also a reminder of the designation of the date for MIDNIGHT. For example, late Monday it finally becomes midnight, then it becomes Tuesday. But to say something happened at Midnight, which date should be specified? The date that was just finishing up, or the date it was starting?
When one says, "Twelve o'clock" - and then adds AM or PM, how is NOON distinguished from MIDNIGHT? Actually, these two "twelve o'clock's" are neither in the morning (AM) nor in the afternoon (PM) but on the boundary between those those broader concepts of the halves of a day.
The same question regards the Navy time using Bells. Eight Bells signifies the end of one watch and the start of the next watch. When identifying when an event happens, one can say at "eight bells" but of which watch? The one just ending, or the one just starting?
I am still trying to understand the concept of tapping to send Morse code. I don't mean tapping a telegraph key, which can be held down longer to send the dash, I mean banging a pipe with a wrench. How can one do a "SHORT" bang and make it OBVIOUSLY different from a "LONG" bang? In Missee Lee, Nancy and CF communicated in the pirate ship, with CF locked in a cage, by BANGING, but HOW does one bang a dot differently from a dash? Pausing after a "dash' doesn't do it, as how can that pause be separated from the pause that means end of character (or word)?
Amazing the things that come up in the mind when studying "All Things Ransome" - what an education experience these books have been...
Just thinking, and puzzling. You'd think by the time I got to 75 I would have understood these things.
But then, I'm not 75 yet. That won't happen until about a week and a half from today. Maybe by then, All will be revealed...
Thanks for all you folks for these years of explaining Ransome to me. I'm still learning.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky