March 1 is Whuppity Scoorie in Lanark.
That sentence was entirely in English. Let’s take it apart.
Is is a verb. March 1 is a date. In is a preposition. A preposition is anything you can do in relation to a cloud: You can be in it, on it, under it, near it. Lanark is a town in Scotland–a royal burgh, to use its formal description. You can be in it or near it. It’s awkward to be on it or under it, but it’s not impossible. It has a population of 8,253 (or did at last count) and is 29 1/2 miles from Edinburgh and 325 miles from London.
In between all those words is a festival, Whuppity Scoorie, and if you hurry you still have time to go, which is why I’ve added an extra post this week. Welcome to another oddity of British culture.
A royal burgh? That’s a Scottish burgh with a royal charter under a law abolished in 1975. Which is sort of like giving directions by telling you to turn left where the cafe used to be, but history’s a powerful beast and the phrase lingers even if the law and the cafe are gone
A burgh? That’s an incorporated town. In Scotland.
Scotland? It’s that stretch of land covering the north of Britain.
We could keep this up all day but let’s move on. What’s Whuppity Scoorie?
To help explain that, a 2011 article in the Scotsman quotes the chair of the community council, who describes it as an “ancient ritual . . . despite the fact that nobody really knows when it started or what it means. But hey, it’s fun and it’s aye been.”
It’s aye been? That’s one of those things the Scots say to mess with the English. I’m American and easy to mess with, linguistically speaking, especially since Google translate won’t divulge the secret of what that means. But I dug deeper, with Lord Google’s permission, and found that it means it always has been.
And if it doesn’t, I’m sure someone will correct me.
Okay, you’ve stuck around long enough to prove that you’re serious, so let’s find out what happens at Whuppity Scoorie: The town’s kids run around the kirk (that’s the church) three times, going anti-clockwise and swinging paper balls around their heads on strings. At the end, the kids scramble for small coins scattered on the ground. Since it’s evening, the coins are hard to spot.
A man scattering scattering coins told the Scotsman, “I just keep walking. If you stop, you’re surrounded. Nothing against the kids, but I’ve seen vultures no as bad as this.”
What do people think it means? One local woman thought the ritual was pre-Christian and was meant to chase evil spirits to the neighboring village.
Good neighbors, those Lanarkians.
Did either town exist in pre-Christian times? Possibly. I can’t find a date for either place. The evil spirits have been chased onto the internet and they’ve taken the dates down.
Other people believe the ritual welcomes spring and still others that it mimics the seventeenth-century “practice of taking prisoners from the nearby Tolbooth and whipping them round the kirk before scouring them of their sins in the River Clyde.”
Another belief dates it to the nineteenth century, when Lanark kids would march over to New Lanark to throw stones at the kids there.
Like I said, good neighbors.
Lanark has two other yearly festivals. Het Pint started in 1662. It takes place on New Year’s Day and involves pensioners getting a free glass of mulled wine at the Tolbooth. Lanimer Day sounds like a carnival but it lasts five days.
It’s a very strange place, Britain. That’s not a complaint, just an observation.
I’ve met quite a few evil spirits on the internet.
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And now we know how they got there.
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Now I think you’re making them up.
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I wish I had the kind of imagination that could produce that. I have tried. I went through a stretch of time where I found myself wondering what I’d suggest if we were going to introduce a new “traditional” festival to the village. The best I ever came up with was rolling those giant round hay bales down the hill and letting them act like demolition equipment when they come to the spot where the road turns and they don’t. It wasn’t one of my more responsible ideas. Or my more believable ones.
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Those big bales are fairly modern. You’d want something that at least looked as if it might pre-date those lying and inventive Victorians.
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True, true. But that’s a minor problem compared to the damage they’d do barreling through an assortment of houses. As I said, coming up with fake traditions just isn’t one of my gifts.
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I wonder if they’ve done someone being killed by a rolling bale of hay on Midsomer Murders.
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Good question. It’s rural enough. And improbable enough. The problem is that by now they’ve killed off the entire town and you could roll half a dozen hay bales through it without finding anyone to flattern.
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Strange? I’ve no idea what you mean, Ellen.
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Uh, yeah, what was I thinking?
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Sounds like a great tradition for the kids!
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It does.
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It’s good to embrace the strange, the weird, the and the outright batshit, takes our mind off the serious stuff. Perhaps the Cof E should adopt this one, I’m pretty sure if someone was dropping money around the churches everyone would be quite happy to run round it to pick it up, and the dwindling congregations would be a thing of the past.
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You’re a genius. Now if we can just work in a way to use that mace…
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Caber tossing.
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That’d work.
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Thanks for writing this. Now I’ve gotta read all your posts that I’ve missed…
Love, light and glitter
Enjoy the sunshine whilst it lasts (no clue what part of the UK you are, but here there’s blue sky)
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Cornwall, north coast of, and it’s so beautiful today that I’m half drunk on it. I even did some gardening, so in addition to being sun-drunk I’m feeling very smug.
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So did I! A nice Summer day here.
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Hope it’s beautiful today too! It is this morning here…..
Love, light and glitter
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Gorgeous.
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Here in France it’s beautiful as well… I’ve got an 8-boy sleepover with tents happening outside. Just had to brag about that somewhere. I was sun-drunk when I arranged it yesterday
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I’m nominating you for sainthood. Unfortunately, my recommendation isn’t likely to get much attention, which is why I thought I should mention it to you directly.
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😂😂😂you are wonderful. Nomination tearfully accepted.
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Yes, a tearful sense of modesty seems just right.
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No no I was tearful from total exhaustion. (#OMGisurvived #nomodesty) All self-inflicted of course. The boys were very easy-going, it’s me who’s exhausting. Hey wait I think I’m mastering this…. oh crap just blew it.
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It’s so hard to win at this game. Especially when the point seems to be to lose.
Or to appear to lose.
Or–. Well, it’s not as if I understand this.
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Why do I keep missing comments? How on earth do you keep up with yours, you have so many?!?! (Rhetorical) I have huge fear of success. Win/lose it’s all the same. Maybe?
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It helps that so many of the comments are very funny. And some that aren’t funny are interesting. And some that are neither take very little time to respond to. Fear of success. Hmm. Tough one. Some old bit of training to be a nice girl, maybe? It’s hard to avoid that in this world of ours. Even if you don’t get it at home, some helpful friends and neighbors and teachers will be happy to fill in.
And then there’s the whole thorny question of how we define success.
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I learn a lot from you, Ms. Ellen. And so true about the nice girl factor. And yes, I agree about success. It gets a lot easier once we define it for ourselves, instead of letting it be defined for us. Remembering that is the challenging part.
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It is indeed.
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Glitter is a pain to clean up tho.
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True, but pretty and sparkly
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What a fun weird thing to do. I have sudden desire to have my own private Whuppity Scoorie event here at home. I adore March 1 because as far as I’m concerned winter is over, spring is here on that date. So why not celebrate it Whuppity Scoorie-style?
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Absolutely. For all we know–for all anyone knows–the original one started that way.
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Too funny, Ellen!
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Thanks.
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You’re welcome!
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Reminds me of the time I went to New Orleans and discovered they have multiple parades every day of the year. It would drive me nuts living in a town with parades or Whuppity Scoorie or other such things, especially ones that have “aye been”! Thanks for the warning, Ellen!
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This one’s only once a year, so it’s probably safe to visit. If you lived there, you could always plan to visit a cousin you don’t really like on that day.
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Het pint sounds a good day.
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This is a very strange country. Wonderful, but very strange.
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A bit of genealogical digging a few years back shied my father’s people coming from Lanark — or at least that’s where the ship sailed from. But from where I sit, in NE USA, Lanark looks a bit inland to have a shipping port. Any chance you can shed light here, Ellen?
I do enjoy your posts. But then that does not make me unique.
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Well, it’s near the River Clyde, although it doesn’t look like it’s on it. I don’t know how far upriver the Clyde’s navigable, but Lanark seems to be quite a way up. I’m guessing you’d have to drag the boat overland to reach the sea. Or you could leave from Glasgow, where the Clydes a more sentsible size. You can find some information on the Clyde here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Clyde
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I know from watching documentaries that the British coastline has shrunk inland a bit.
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Not that much. Yet.
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I’m wondering if sea levels rising will reverse the process.
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Sorry, but I got lost in here somwhere.
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Yeah, watch Timeteam with Tony Robinson. It’s why the old maps often didn’t line up with the survey gadgets.
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True. But it hasn’t turned Lanark into a coastal town. Yet.
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I think I could live in a “burgh” that is as nuts as this. Yup. Thank you for adding delight to my morning!
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It’s a pleasure, but if you want truly insane festivals, can I suggest checking out the Gloucester cheese rolling and the flaming tar barrel race?
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Flaming tar barrel race? THAT sounds like fun!!
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November 5, Ottery St. Mary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtOYyPj1li0
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So interesting! I recently did some geneology and found out one of my ancestors was beheaded in Glasgow Square for participating in Calvinism. Zowee!
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Ouch.
Another comment had me looking at Lanark on a map of Scotland, and it’s not all that far from Glasgow. For whatever that’s worth.
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He should have quit while he was a head.
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Groan.
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Well you would, while having your head cut off, I guess.
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😂😂😂
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Paper balls on strings? That sounds like a fairly modern invention. Sounds fun. We should start doing it. It should spread.
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True. Paper cheap enough to ball up and whirl around is relatively recent.
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Balls swinging round, connected by strings,
These are a few of my favorite things.
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To each his or her own. I prefer edibles.
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Even though they don’t fit the song.
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The Von Trapps were rich and therefore not hungry enough to include food in their song.
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Good point.
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For a country which celebrates Haggis hurling and burning the Clavie why not whirl bits of balled paper around :)
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Haggis hurling? I thought you had to eat the stuff.
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Hurling is what you do after you eat it.
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To date, being a vegetarian has saved me from trying any.
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That. to.… haha
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I’ve heard there’s vegetarian haggis (made from a haggis that never ate meat, presumably). Someday I’m going to have to taste the stuff. I just know I will.
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Haha…No stuffing a sheeps stomach for the veggie one just lots of oats , lentils and veggies baked so they say…or maybe stuffed into a synthetic casing if they can find one big enough…
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Sounds edible if uninspiring.
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Agree not something I eat at all :)
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I was in the same room with a haggis recently, so it’s possible that the stuff is stalking me.
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Haha… :)
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Scattering coins in front of children would do no good here, they’re all staring at their phones.
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Aim at their foreheads. They’ll look up.
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Ha ha!
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Ok, that got a lol out of me.
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I always love reading your posts. Thank you for another insight into our quirky culture xx Maria
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Thanks for saying that, and you’re welcome. It’s a pleasure.
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Okay, but what do the words Whuppity Scoorie actually mean?
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I haven’t a clue. No one seemed to even try defining them. My guess is that people would be as sure about that as they are about the origins of the celebration.
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Okay, but…
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That’s the problem with enquiring minds: lots of questions but not necessarily any answers.
Or lots of answers but not necessarily any information to back them up.
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Like male answering syndrome? (It’s a thing).
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I only recently ran into the phrase. Was it on your blog or someone else’s? Sorry–my mind’s run out of separate containers lately. Great phrase, anyway. It expalins so much.
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My first husband used to love to say it. He would stop himself as he was about to answer me, say “actually, I don’t know” and “whew, I nearly fell into male answering syndrome, that was a close one.”
He would also say “hey, I didn’t open my wallet!” if he saw a moth.
Nope, havn’t used it on my blog. You may lose sleep trying to work out where else you saw it. Try more gardening to wear yourself out.
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The web’s a tangled place and I’m not likely to re-find the spot. I don’t think I’ll try, just carry the phrase away and treasure it. It has a neat way of summing up what I already know and by doing that making me know it more.
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Such a rich and confusing history!
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Isn’t it just?
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I love how very localised such traditions and festivals are. We had nothing like Whuppity Scoorie where i grew up in central Fife but we did have scrambles. As kids, we would always stand around outside the Registry Office on a Saturday morning knowing there would be a wedding and that the groom or best man would initiate a scramble and we could collect coins to spend on sweeties later.
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Was that just a Fife thing? Or was that a more general tradition?
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I think the scramble is more broadly Scottish and not specific to a region, though I’ve no claim on being an expert. Likewise, giving pewter (or silver – or these days a coin) to a new baby to ward off the fairies and their changeling plots seems to be pretty universal in Scottish culture. I’ve known people to place a coin in the pram of a new baby not even knowing why it’s good luck or why it’s a tradition, it’s just so ingrained to do it.
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The same way people will knock on wood (or their head in the absence of anything that came from a tree) to keep something they said from being jinxed. Oddly enough, I haven’t seen anyone tossing a bit of salt over their shoulder in a long time, although that may be because people are less likely to have salt on the table than they used to be.
Strange creatures we are.
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That’s very true. I haven’t seen someone do that in decades either.
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I’ve done it when I spilled salt. That’s what my mother said to do. However, I don’t use cooking salt at all now so hasn’t happened in a long time.
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When I was a kid (and we’re going back to the 1850s here), there was a salt shaker on every table. Every table. Which meant plenty of opportunities to knock them over. Think how much salt gets conserved by all those kids who don’t have them to spill.
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Due to some Scottish ancestry, we had an unmarried lady carry our baby up the road and into her Christening. It’s supposed to thwart the evil spirits and convey fertility/marriage on the lady.
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I’ve never heard of that one, but then I’m a long way from Scotland and just about the same distance from church rituals like christenings. I wonder if anyone knows for certain anymore what the original purpose was.
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How interesting. I didn’t know that custom at all. Thanks for sharing.
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Yes, it was in a NF book I was researching at the time. Harmless. I like including symbolic things in celebrations. Makes for good stories to tell the kids, like “you were stark naked in a church in front of lots of people!”
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How dull the world would be without our superstitions and the wacky ways in which people have sought to expunge those evil spirits over the centuries! Brilliant as always Ellen!
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I wonder if there’s a part of the globe where people didn’t at some time or other believe in evil spirits.
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Or even a place that lacks people who still believe in evil spirits. LOL
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It’d make an interesting survey.
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Re: Belief in evil spirits – many in the Former Colonies have now become believers.
When I read your first sentence, a smudge on my glasses (spectacles, I mean) lead me to believe it said “MACH 1 is Whuppity Scooree… “thereby confusing me in a scientific way into thinking it had to do with the proposed speed of Brexiting.
One of the US’s more underrated festivals is The National Hollering Contest, held every summer in Spivey’s Corners, North Carolina.
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The National Hollering Contest is new to me. If I was closer, I’d go.
I see your point about Mach 1 and Brexit. We’re headed somewhere at high speed and we have only the vaguest idea where it is. Talk about insane festivals.
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We mustn’t ignore the Smelly Sneakers competition held each March in Montpelier or the “ambling of the heifers” each June in Brattleboro. Both here in beautiful Vermont where it’s currently about 3 degrees (F) but the sun is out and the storm has finally passed.
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I’m glad I don’t have to judge the first contest. Given that it’s sneakers, it can’t be too ancient a tradition.
We’re stormless here at the moment as well, and basking in sunshine. I won’t tell you the temperature–it’d be unkind–but it’s warm for the season and people are telling each other that we’ll pay a price for this weather.
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Very interesting! :)
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Well, that’s a new one to me. I wonder if they have an uppity scoorie, too? Like in ‘where there’s a whup, there’s an up’. I just made that up. I think.
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It’s entirely possible that you did. I don’t think I understand it but it’s got a convincing ring to it.
The problem with an uppity scoorie is that you can throw as many coins upward as you like, but they’ll come back down all the same.
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PS. Don’t be confused by the userpic. You and I aren’t great on faces but even I would be able to tell I’m no longer as young or wearing red.
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Years ago, I worked for a writers organization that often brought in visiting writers to work with local (and less established) writers, and someone on staff had to meet them. Fortunately, that wasn’t me, because I’m unbelievably bad about recognizing faces. But the guy who for a while did used to complain about photos that were twenty years out of date. Or that had some single identifying feature. He went to meet Audre Lorde once and realized he was looking for the turban she’d worn in her photo. I don’t think he’d bothered to take in the face under it at all.
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I once went to meet my daughter at the airport and failed to recognize her. Granted, she’d cut her hair – formerly gorgeous butt-length, but she got a job as camp counselor in South Carolina and it had to go. It was spiky and short and dyed blue. I still felt like a complete failure as a mother.
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And I remember walking into a room where our two godkids were on the floor doing something or other and not being able to tell which was which for a moment. I felt the same.
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I have to admit I tend to recognise people more by voice than face – there are some features that I do recognise but I have a heck of time trying to get them to stay in my brain. And clothes – when I meet someone in person – particularly in a crowded place – I have to memorize what they’re wearing or I can lose them easily. So yeah, I’d probably have looked for the turban too!
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That sounds very much like me. So much so that years ago I saw my mother unexpectedly and didn’t recognize her at first. I looked at her and thought, That’s a very very small old woman carrying a very big bunch of flowers. Then realized that was my very small mother carrying a very big bunch of flowers.
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That made me smile. I’ve lost my husband in the same room, before now and my sister in a car park.
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It’s absurd how much of a relief it was–and still is–to discover that this happens to other people, it’s not just me.
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Yep, I know. Same here.
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In case you haven’t stumbled over the term yet (and you probably have), they’re calling it face blindness.
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Yeah, I know. Not a great term but a darn sight easier to pronounce (and spell) than… here we go… prosopagnosia.
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Yup, I haven’t even tried to remember that one. I’ve got a nice, simple English-language term. It’ll do fine, thanks.
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Should you need help with current Glasgow vernacular, this link might help…
https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/13272997.the-weegie-words-you-help-us-list-100-words-that-prove-you-come-from-glasgow/
From the inter war period my father recalled that at dances in Glasgow the ladies’ excuse me was known as waur the hairy.
More recently the view that tower blocks were examples of bad planning practice was exemplified in the Jeely Piece song…if the link works.
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A friend here in Cornwall–a Scot–sings that at a local singers night when the mood takes her, or when something comes up that makes it vaguely relevant. It took me a while to connect “piece” with “sandwich,” but once I got that the song fell into place much better for me. Many thanks for contributing these to the conversation. They’re great.
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More socially relevant than ‘Ye cannae shove yer grannie aff a bus’, I feel…
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Absolutely. Although I’ve heard that one at singers night as well. We’re not always in top form, somehow….
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What a beautiful view of the cliff! I love cliffs. This is a strange superstitious belief. Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks. The cliffs here are gorgeous.
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I recently opened a Tumblr account/App on my Smartie-phone. Since I am a true Anglophile, I naturally searched for those “Anglo-things.” Here are my favorites, so far, that I am following: adore-london, sometimeslondon, myverybritishblog,cozylondon, and for exquisite photography and links to other sites, “fuckitandmovetobritain.” (Don’t think we haven’t entertained that comment and thought often about such a move. I could have dual citizenship in Ireland… That’s the O’Neil part of me.) Thanks for this fun thread.
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As long as Britain stays in the EU, the Irish passport will work. But it’s all up in the air, still, and looking to either stay there for a while or crash down on our heads without warning.
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So not to nitpick, but actually you CAN’T be on a cloud. Not unless it’s The Cloud, and once you’re on that there’s no getting around it so I don’t think that counts either. But regular clouds? Nope – you fall through. Every time. Ask anyone.
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I’m going to sound like Bill Clinton discussing what the meaning of is is, but it depends who you are. If you happen to be yourself, or mine, yup, crash, right through and onto the hard ground. Splat, and a nasty end to the story. If you happen to be a molecule of water, on the other hand, you’re fine. Which grammatically, if not in any practical terms, you could be….
Grammar’s a funny thing. It can wave the most unlikely things past approvingly and kick up a fuss when you say something perfectly sensible, like, “It’s me.”
“No, no, no,” it says. “It is I.”
It’s not. It’s damn well me.
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