Posted by Robert Dilley on August 11, 2000 at 17:21:32 from 205.189.37.81:
In Reply to: Picts and Martyrs posted by Ed Kiser on August 03, 2000 at 05:28:57:
Only now found time to access and print out Ed's list of "oddities". There has been much erudite discussion already, but I have a few comments that may add a little extra light.
#9: "Jiff". "Jiffy" seems to date back to the 18th century as an expression for a very short unit of time, but is of unknown origin.
#11: "Times have changed". Timothy could leave supplies unguarded in his rowboat. When I was growing up in an old farmhouse on the northern fringes of the Lake District, doors were never locked. Neighbours would knock and walk in (at the kitchen door -- only very strange strangers used the front door) calling out "anyone home?" Times have changed. On our last visit, we parked for 30 minutes in February by the Solway Firth, and came back to find a window smashed and my wife's purse gone.
#13: Mail delivery. In the Sherlock Holmes stories there are several instances of a letter mailed in the morning getting to another London address the same day. For that matter, when I first moved to Canada, over 30 years ago, I could write to England on Monday and hope to get a reply by Friday. Now I can reckon on three weeks for turnaround (and not just because my correspondents have got lazier).
#19: Lake District facilities. When my family moved to the Caldbeck area in 1953 their house had an outdoor chemical toilet and no electricity (I remember a friend and I on the first vacation elaborately setting up a sheet for a screen and darkening windows for a slide show, before realising there was nothing to plug the projector into!) There was piped water, and my parents did get indoor plumbing and eventually the wonder of electricity arrived.
#21: Further to roads. There has been too much widening and straightening of main roads: the most deplorable being the routing of West Cumberland traffic from the M6 Motorway through Keswick on the A66. However, Park Planning authorities are trying to limit the impact of cars, especially on the still-narrow minor roads, though running into vocal opposition from local businesses, who see a steady flow of traffic as customers for their gift shops, cafes etc.
#24: "Limb". This once once a fairly common (non-dialect) term for a mischievous child: short for "limb of Satan".
#29: Guddling trout. When I was 12 two local farm lads tried to teach me to guddle in Dale Beck. They kept pulling them out but, unlike Dick and Dorothea, I never once managed to land a fish this way. On our last visit I demonstrated the technique to my daughters, with the same end result (maybe I smell offensive to fish?)
#30: Age of houses. A few days after first arriving in North America (in beautiful downtown Pittsburgh) I was watching a TV play in which a character boasted that her family lived in "one of the oldest houses in the city" (Winnipeg, I believe) that "dated right back to the 1890s". I had just come from a university where my college was one of the newer ones, the oldest part having been built in 1511.... I knew I had indeed arrived in the New World.
Thanks, Ed. I enjoyed your comments. Now, when are you going to do the next book...?