Posted by Ed Kiser on January 05, 2001 at 06:44:46 from 64.20.230.163:
COOT CLUB
Observations:
by Edwin M. Kiser, a Southern American, and as such a "foreigner"
trying to make meanings of not only the different language (as
indeed, British English and American English do have their
differences) but also of a different time. Language tends to
change with time; expressions once common become archiac and fall
into disuse. There are also the local dialects that sometimes
suffer in the translation. It is these differences that ADD to
the fascination of reading the works of Arthur Ransome.
The quotes and page references are taken from the paperback book
produced by the David R. Godine Publishers of Boston, Mass, in
the "second printing" dated 1993 edition.
============================================================
reference: no particular page or chapter, or book for that matter...
In typing in these stories, there is one word that I am forever
typing incorrectly, then have to go back and fix, and that is the
word "round" - which I keep typing as "around".
Samples where I would have used "around":
"Swing her right round toward the side where the sail is..."
"She ran round the corner of the house..."
"bullet after bullet splashing in the water round his head..."
And yet, there are a few places where "around" is found...
PP-"But John and Nancy were there in time to trample out
the grass around it."
PP-"They sat around it and talked, seeing each other's
faces by the light of the flames."
SD-"She never did hold with their rampaging
around in a boat."
The above three references are the ONLY happenings of "around" in:
SA, SD, WH, PP, PM (the only ones I have typed in so far: CC is in progress)
The rarity of "around" makes me wonder if the above three are
possibly typographical errors on the part of the printer.
P39 Chapter 3
"He filled a kettle at a tap in the back kitchen, brought it
round to the shed and put it on the oil-stove to boil."
The "back kitchen": this implies the house had more than one
kitchen, in that if there is a "back kitchen", there must also be
a "front kitchen". I am surprised to see here the concept of
more than one kitchen in a house. Why have more than one?
Other references to the "kitchen" just say, "the kitchen", with
no specification as to which one is being referenced.
- - - -
P52 Chapter 4
"The bows of the big cruiser were moored to the bank above the
opening."
Bows? Plural? Just how many front ends are there on the
Margoletta? The stern is referred to in the singular. So with
one rear end, and at least two front ends, this suggests the ship
is in the shape of "Y". Not very likely...
P57 Chapter 4
"With two sweeps of the paddle he brought the Dreadnought round
and close under the bows of the moored yacht."
Looks like the Teasel had more than one bow also.
The reference to "bows" in the plural are frequent throughout the
book. Maybe that is just "sailor talk" to refer to the front of
a boat in the Plural manner.
After seeing so many references to "bows" as being in the plural
sense, I got curious, and ran a scan across the other books I
have typed in (SA, SD, WH, PP, PM) and found MANY similar references
to "BOWS" - interesting that in going through those books, this
concept never seemed to catch my eye before. However, in scanning
those 5 books, there are some references to "BOW" in the singular.
Now I am confused - when is BOW to be singular, and when is BOWS
to be in its plural form?
Here are the lines from those five books that use the singular form:
---------- SACH30.TXT
"I'm going to slacken away my bow warp," said Captain John.
---------- SDCH23.TXT
not much, on the port bow as they would have said if they had
As soon as they were clear, John put the bow oars out. He pulled
---------- SDCH24.TXT
John had the oars in the bow rowlocks by now and had pulled
---------- SDCH32.TXT
"All aboard?" cried Nancy at last. "Cast off the bow warp!
---------- WHCH7.TXT
"Aye, aye, sir," came from the bow thwart, where Titty and
---------- PMCH9.TXT
Scarab. Nancy, astride the bow thwart, leaned over, sunk the
In a related document:
Glossary of Sailing Terms Used in Arthur Ransome's
Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale
By Stuart Wier and John Kohnen
Copyright (c) 1999 Stuart K. Wier
I see the following references to the singular form: "BOW":
Amidships: The central part of a boat, between the bow and the stern.
Gunwale: A structural timber extending from bow to stern along the inside
the bow and to both sides of the hull. The stays to the sides of the hull
are also called shrouds, but the line to the bow is always the forestay.
Stem: A structural member in the bow of the boat extending the keel forward
On the other hand, in that same document is this PLURAL version:
Painter: A line in the bows of a boat, used to make fast to a dock or other
object, and for light towing.
My conclusion: "Bows" is the noun; "bow" is the adjective.
Maybe we should just call it, "the FRONT end", and avoid the hassel...
P52 Chapter 4
Consider the names of the objects of technology of that time:
"All the Hullabaloos were down below in the two cabins, and in
one cabin there was a wireless set and a loud speaker, and in the
other they were working a gramaphone."
I realize this is the early thirties. Just wondered when the
language managed to shift from "wireless set" to "radio", and
when "gramaphone" became "record player". And now, with the
techology of the CD recording, we have combined the concept of
"radio" and "record player" (CD player, really) in the package
referred to as "boom box", a name that seems to emphasize the
level of noise that it produces. At least, the irritating noise
levels are still with us, and are as objectionable as they were
when Tom was paddling up to the Margoletta. Technology changes,
but the obnoxious among us remain always.
- - - -
P60 chapter 5
"Mrs. Barrable drummed on her teeth with the end of her
penholder and glanced through the cabin door into the
canvas-roofed well, to see Dick earnestly wiping plates, and
Dorothea, with a hand luckily small enough to get inside,
scooping the tea-leaves out of a little tea-pot."
This is a tiny peek into another time. The concept of
"penholder" is not in common usage today, as we are all into the
idea of "ballpoint" pens, and some pens that have a supply of ink
within them in a replaceable cartridge. Back then, the pen point
itself was pushed into a holder. By changing points, one could
change the width and the style of the writing. This point, now
held in the holder, is dipped into an ink bottle, thus picking up
enough ink for a few words or maybe a few lines before needing
re-dipping to get a fresh supply.
Come to think of it, today, buying a simple bottle of ink into
which to dip that steel pen is not all that simple nor convenient
a purchase. Today, we don't buy ink in bottles, we buy
replacement cartridges, we buy ink in special containers for our
ink jet printers, we buy a black powder called "toner" for our
laser printers. Ink bottle? An anachronism of another time...
Penmanship used to be an art that was highly regarded. Today, as
I write by pounding this keyboard on my computer, handwriting is
not involved with this process. Handwriting is used primarily to
make notes for the grocery store list. The beauty of good
writing is not often seen in one's handwriting skills. The steel
pen points of that age, in the hand of a skilled writer, could
produce written words that are works of art, an art that today is
seldom seen. It is an artifact of refinement that now is lost,
but once was quite common.
Now, as for the tea leaves - don't know what the current custom
for making tea is in England, but here in the USA, at my usual
grocery store, loose leaves are not the common way of obtaining
tea, whereas the ubiquitous TEA BAG has taken over. The tea is
soaked through the porous walls of the paper tea bag, then the
entire bag, with its contents of used tea leaves, can be cleanly
extracted and disposed of.
Many years ago, I can remember my mother preparing tea from loose
leaves. She would pour the tea from the vessel in which it was
heated, and in which the loose leaves were tossed to soak out
their essence, into a teapot through a tea strainer, designed
expressly for the purpose of straining out the bits of tea leaves
from the portion to be served. A quick rinse under the faucet
removed the loose leaves from both the strainer and from the
cooking pot in which the tea was originally prepared.
I find it strange that Dot is actually reaching into the pot to
manually remove these bits of used tea leaves rather than just
rinsing them out.
P62 chapter 5
"make a really good dash for an omnibus"
I don't know if this is a difference with American English as
compared to British English, or perhaps this is an archiac term
that belongs to that older age, but the use of the word,
"omnibus", would today, at least around here (USA), be just a
"bus".
- - - -
P66, chapter 5
"Were you lurking all the time?" said Dorothea.
The verb, "LURK", appears in many places in the Ransome series.
In Pigeon Post, they had to "lurk" to hide from Squashy Hat.
Although this word certainly has meaning in American English, we
would not use it in this manner; we would instead say, "Get
down!" rather than "Lurk!". In the above quoted context, we
would say, "Were you hiding all the time?"
- - - -
P72, chapter 5
"Do you think we'll see him again?" asked Dick's voice
out of the darkness forrard.
"forrard" - I would have spelled it "forward" - but maybe this is
some sort of "nautical" term, or is this another example of the
spelling differences between American and British English?
I see this spelling in multiple places, so that would seem to rule
out a typo error.
- - - -
P80 chapter 7
"...you'll find lots of birds to look at in the marsh and among
those sallows."
What feature of the river bank geography is referenced as
"sallows"? Is this possibly a mistake, and the word was intended
to be "shallows"?
- - - -
P80 chapter 7
"...she rang the breakfast gong."
How quaintly FORMAL! I would have thought the normal way to let
members a household that breakfast was ready would be to call
out, "breakfast is ready!" or words to that effect. To use a
GONG makes me think of announcing a meal time with chimes on
board a luxury liner. Is this house so HUGE that the voice would
not penetrate to the farthest reaches, whereas the sound of the
GONG would however get through? I can see using a bell or some
other loud noise to announce the start of a particular time
period in some school, or perhaps at a large dormitory, but for a
private home... sounds like a bit much. Maybe it is a class
thing, where such becomes the PROPER thing to do.
- - - -
P81 chapter 7
"...taken some patent blocks to pieces and given them a thorough
oiling."
I assume "blocks" is referring to the "block and tackle" type of
equipment, where the block is the thing that has the pulley
(wheels) in it to let pass the ropes. But what kind of a block
is a PATENT block? I would have thought that just about all the
equipment on a boat - or elsewhere for that matter - would be
patented by its inventor. Why is it so significant to state here
that this block has been patented? But then, maybe that
adjective means something totally else...
I am reminded of "patent leather shoes". No invention reference here.