Posted by Ed Kiser on January 05, 2001 at 06:39:18 from 64.20.230.163:
P231, chapter 19
"They didn't cotch him," said Jim Wooddall. "They'd be
going to Horning or Wroxham to raise a bobbery else."
The word, "bobbery", is not exactly understood, but taking the word
"Bobby" to mean a "policeman", then perhaps the above phrase means:
"They'd be going to Horning or Wroxham to file charges with the police."
- - - -
P231, chapter 19
"He'll ferget the salt else, the gormless old lummocks!"
The word, "lummocks", is unfamiliar, but I assume it has derogatory
connotation, such as "idiot". The word, "gormless" leaves me totally
wondering as to its meaning. Just what is a "gorm" that old Simon
doesn't have any of? Is this word local dialect?
- - - -
P232 chapter 19
"He set the potatoes on the little stove,
altered the draught of it, and put more coal on, until Jim bent
down and told him it was a good thing they had a black sail
with all the smoke he was making."
Old Simon was preparing to cook on the wherry, Sir Garnet. Consider
how you would feel, if today, you went below on a sailing craft the
size of that wherry, to see cooking being done on a COAL fueled stove.
Now, I am not at all familiar with the cooking procedures on sail
powered craft today, so I may be wrong, but it seems that using COAL
in such a situation would be remarkable unusual TODAY. There is the
inherent danger of FIRE, of the general dirtyness of simply
transporting the coal to be available for fuel, and the soot and smoke
produced by burning it.
The direct reference to smoke shows the dirty results of such a heat
source.
This practice on the Sir Garnet perhaps speaks of the very low cost,
at that time in history, of coal as a fuel source to where it is worth
it to put up with the dirtyness. It also seems to indicate that there
has been a change in the technology of "the good ol' days", in that LP
(liquified petroleum) which is sometimes called "bottled gas",
probably was not available back in the '30's, whereas today, the usual
mobile home (I know, that's the American term for it - I dare not
guess what the Mother Country would call it) would do its space
heating and cooking with the bottled LP gas. Not being a sailor, I
can only guess that it would be similar to cooking on a sailing yacht
of today, to there also use the LP as a fuel source. But coal? Not
today. This reference in Coot Club becomes yet another anachronism of
another time and place.
- - - -
P234 chapter 19
"No sign on 'em here," said Jim.
Sometimes it gets hard to distinguish between typographical errors and
simple dialect spellings. I would have said, "No sign OF 'em here,"
assuming it is a typo.
- - - -
No Particular Page... chapter 19 in general...
The whole idea of the twins suddenly leaving home on the Sir Garnet
with Old Simon and Jim Wooddall strikes me as an act that today might
be taken very much the wrong way, with legal liabilities very possibly
coming down mighty hard on those two helpful gentleman. Two "old
goats" running off with two young girls like that, well, that could
lead to some serious misunderstandings.
"Ye'll be gettin' me into trouble with Mr. Farland." (p237)
Sounds like maybe Jim Wooddall was having some worries as to how
all this might look.
Maybe those days were a kinder, gentler time than what we know of
today. Some lawyer could really have a field day with that scandalous
situation... not that Ransome would ever allude to any such "goings
on". Perhaps I should follow Ransome's lead and not push that topic
any further...
No particular page, and this applies to all these Ransome adventures...
I don't remember any reference to a particular Day Of The Week.
Tomorrow is another day, much like today. There is no awareness of
anything different about any particular day. There is no Sunday, with
no special observances regarding that day. There is no reference to
anything resembling religion, although there is that one remark in Big
Six where a suspect's bicycle was being examined only to realize it
belonged to the Rector of the church, "And he's Church of England,
too". There is a reference to "Friday," but in SA, Titty was
referring to "Man Friday" as her visitor was being called, which is
hardly here used to refer to a day of the week.
- - - -
P243 chapter 20
As they approached the upper end of Breydon Water, there at the mouth
of the Yare they see a "lonely inn, the Berney Arms, standing above
the river." Ransome has followed existing geography in a rather
realistic manner. He uses real names of real places. Just wondering,
is there such a place as the "Berney Arms" there today? Knowing the
way towns seem to grow, its being "lonely" probably is no longer true.
- - - -
P245 chapter 20
"That's the New Cut," said the Admiral. "Between the
two rivers, so that people can go from one to the other
without having to go down to Breydon, or under St. Olave's
Bridge. That one opens."
"Why is it called 'New'?" asked Dick.
"I suppose they called it 'New' when it was new, a
hundred years ago."
This was written some 60 years ago. Just wondering, is that connecting
canal STILL called the "New Cut"? Now, it would have that name for
some 160 years; it is hardly "new".
- - - -
P250 chapter 21
"The Come Along passed the first bridge, and a goods engine
went slowly across it just above their heads."
What is a "goods engine"?
- - - -
p250 chapter 21
"Suddenly, as old Bob cut a corner between the outer
dolphins and headed for Breydon Bridge, they seemed to be
going four times as fast as before."
This is a typo, as "Old Bob" is everywhere else referred to with both
words capitalized, but here, the "old" is lower case. Minor
inconsistency.
- - - -
P257 chapter 21
"Mr. Whittle took off his billycock hat, worked himself round the corner
of the table and sat down..."
What kind of a hat is a "billycock" hat?
P270 Chapter 22
The crew of the Teasel has just discovered the twins have finally made
it to their boat, and are quite delighted, expressed as:
"Oh, three million cheers!"
Here is an piece taken from Pigeon Post, p312, cptr 29...
"It's charcoal all right," said Dick.
"Three cheers," said Titty.
"Three million," said Nancy, pulling out another bit.
"Ouch! My fingers!"
Thought that sounded a bit familiar...
- - - -
P275 Chapter 23
This is a typo:
"Mrs. Whittle came up the companion to shake a duster just
it time to use it to wave farewell."
"it time" should be: "in time".
- - - -
p277 Chapter 23
(The Twins are teaching the D's on the Teasel training ship...)
"Not so hard," Port kept saying. "Let her come round
gently, and she'll get a little bit for nothing."
"For nothing?"
"If you bring her hard round, the rudder stops her, and
you lose. Gently... Gently!"
and from Picts and Martyrs, p148 chapter 15:
(Nancy is instructing Dick in Scarab...)
"You were shoving the tiller across too suddenly... Stops
her... Go about when she's really moving, and let her almost
do it herself... Just ease her round till she's head to wind and
then put the tiler a bit further over. She'll shoot quite a bit
stright into the wind."
Slightly different wording; same lesson. Thought it sounded familiar.
Too bad that by the time Dick had his own ship, the Scarab, he had
forgotten this little lesson about tacking previously learned on
the Teasel, and had to be taught this technique all over again, this
time by Nancy.
- - - -
P278 Chapter 23
Another typo. Suggest a comma is missing after "Admiral":
"Never mind," said the Admiral "we've all got oilskins,
except poor William."
- - - -
P286, chapter 23
I know that the following is Port's imitation of the "Ginty dialect,"
but am not sure as to the intended meaning...
"Yes. Hullo. It's a braw mornin', Ginty, and we're
all well the noo, and hoping your ainsel's the same."
My "take" on that would be: "It's a good morning, Ginty, and we're
all well now, and hoping yourself is the same." But I could have
lost it somewhere in that translation...
- - - -
P291 chapter 24
"He says the Margoletta will be only two more days at Wroxham
getting mended."
One "mends" a tear in the clothing; one "repairs" a boat - or at
least, that is what I would have said.
- - - -
P292 chapter 24
"Come on," said Port. "We'll just slip home and diddle
them again."
I suppose the word, "diddle", means to "give them the slip" or
"fool them" or as more modern slang would have it, "fake them out".
Not sure if the UK has the same understanding about "diddle" but
in USA street slang, the meaning is rather XXX rated, and quite
unappropriate for further definition here...
P296 chapter 25
"We'd better keep the tongue to eat on the voyage," said
Dorothea. "It's only a very little one anyway."
TONGUE! Somehow, the thought of that as a "meat" just sounds a bit
gross. I suppose if one considers what is really in a HOT DOG, that
would probably sound even more gross, but if you don't know, don't ask.
But TONGUE - such a prospect of that as an item to be eaten seems
to come in the same category as, "we've having lungs and brains for
dinner..." No wonder, during my very brief business trip to London,
I went looking for MacDonald's to get something recognisable. (I only
went to Micky D's that one time, so don't beat on me...)
- - - -
P300 chapter 25
The "water-jar" seems to change its composition:
"Port and Dick between them gave him the big earthenware water-jar.
Dorothea handed down milk-can and egg-basket."
Yet, on page 307, chapter 26, the water-jar is now different:
"He made fast her painter round the top of an old pile, and went up
the bank to the inn, taking with him basket, milk-can and stone
water-jar."
- - - -
P317 Chapter 27
Both ships are stuck on the mud, and they are trying to figure how
to get the food from Titmouse to Teasel...
"You couldn't chuck a rope?" shouted Tom.
"Too far."
"I daren't try to buzz a loaf."
"buzz" - presume this means, "throw". I always thought a "buzz" was
what you got when you quite recently just downed a shot of whiskey,
or it's was the sound a bee makes. Then there is the "buzz saw", which is
in reference to the sound a saw makes slicing through logs lengthwise.
"chuck" - more familiar with that expression, as it, too, means "throw."
A similar slang word of the same meaning is "chonk."
Interesting to have two different ways of saying "throw", and that so
close together in the text.
- - - -
P318 chapter 27
"It needn't be string. It doesn't matter how light the first
thing is. We could start with cotton, and then string. There's
a huge ball of string in the stores."
They were trying to figure out how to get supplies from the stranded
Titmouse to the stranded Teasel.
The word "cotton" threw me. To me, cotton is an ingredient that when
properly woven was turned into cloth. Cotton is that white fluffy
stuff that grows on a cotton plant, ready to be picked. They spoke of
"string". To me, a string is made of cotton. I finally figured out
that what they are talking about here is not the fiber the string is
made of, but what they really meant was what I would call "thread", or
perhaps even more specifically, "sewing thread" that comes on a spool,
the kind of thread one uses to sew on a button. Now "String" could be
applied to quite a variety of thicknesses and strengths, but probably
more stronger than sewing thread.
"The Admiral poked a pencil through the cotton reel, and
made the reel spin by patting it."
I translated that to be:
"The Admiral poked a pencil through the spool of thread, and
made the spool spin by patting it."
That is the way it is with reading a foreign language; it just needs
translating into proper English. Uh, American, that is...
P232 chapter 27
"Send us across a drop of water," called the Admiral, "and
we can pour it into our kettle and put in on to boil. Don't try
to send too much at once."
This is just a typo. Should say, "...put it on to..." using "it"
instead of "in".
The statement: "Send us across a drop of water," reminds me of that
song titled, "Throw Momma From the Train (a kiss)". This
misunderstanding is that MOMMA is what gets thrown from the train,
then one realizes that it is the kiss that got thrown, whereas "Momma"
is the "agent for whom the action is done". This usage comes down
from the ages from the Latin, where "MOMMA" would be a DATIVE case
and KISS would be the ACCUSATIVE, or as we now say, the Direct Object.
In the quoted text, the DROP is what is sent, but it at first sounds
like US is being sent, with DROP being the object of the preposition
ACROSS. The correct meaning would have "US" in the DATIVE case, DROP
is the ACCUSATIVE, and ACROSS becomes an adverb, not a preposition.
Without the DATIVE case that LATIN had, what is left missing is an
implied preposition, such as "Send across TO us a drop of water." This
shows US to be the "agent for whom the action is done" which is
defined as one of the primary usages of the DATIVE case in Latin.
Proper usages of the CASE in LATIN avoids the ambiguity of the English
statement.
This implied DATIVE case with missing preposition is the main concept
around a frequent family joke at my place. The wife is frequently
heard to say, "Make me a cup of coffee." To this request, I point all
10 fingers to her, as if I am a magician shooting sparks from my
finger tips in her direction, and I say, "Shazam, you are a cup of
coffee." What she really meant was, "make a cup of coffee FOR me" to
which there is no misunderstanding. Another common favorite of this
genre is: "Call me a taxi", with the obvious reply: "OK, you are a
taxi."
Now before anyone gets upset, discussion of LATIN is appropriate for
a Ransome topic. Missee Lee did it; so can I. We all had to brush
up on our LATIN to get through THAT adventure.
- - - -
P234 chapter 27
"...the Titmouse's kettle went on its way, sloping
a little from the spout..."
Shouldn't that be, "slopping"?