Posted by Guy C. on June 30, 2006 at 07:11:54 from 85.35.55.194 user Astronomer_Guy.
I've been lurking for a bit, so this will combine a response to several threads and start a new one...
First, on names and sources, my thanks to Adam's compliment, "Granted that there are bodies which attempt to regulate names, some more successfully than others, the IAU is pretty good keeping stars and planets under control." I'm on that IAU committee (specifically, the Planetary Nomenclature Working Group that names moons and craters and the like), and trust me, human nature being what it is, we spend half our time dodging brickbats! But like everything else, it works... because at the end of the day, the users of the names have decided to let it work. There's no way we can enforce these names except by common consent.
Meanwhile, I spent a few days last week in London acting as godfather for a friend's baby; and since I had met the friend (mother of the baby) in Antarctica on a scientific expedition -- she's been three times, me only once -- I thought, what would be more appropriate as a gift for the baby than a copy of Winter Holiday? I found a hardcover at Border's (Foyle's didn't have it in hardcover), inscribed it to the child with the promise that when she's old enough I'll fill her in on all the crazy things her mum was up to...
And while getting the book, I picked up, for myself, a copy of WDMTGTS. As I have collected and given away many copies of Ransome, I don't have my own collection; I got this simply to re-read, as it is my favorite, and the book that introduced me to AR more than forty years ago.
Re-reading it again, I was puzzled by something I don't recall ever noticing before, which is the source of the subject line (finally!). Towards the end of the last chapter (p.378 in the Red Fox edition), as Susan is planning the menu when the Goblin at the end of its journey is approaching Pin Mill, she comments:
"We're going to have tea going anyhow... and grog for anybody who wants it, and there's a huge glass of brawn we never found, and Jim says it's just the thing he feels like eating. And I thought of hotting up some peas."
What is a brawn, why is it in glass, why is anything in glass being kept on a boat? From the context I infer that it is something one eats (rather than drinks), presumably with peas...
Help, anyone?