Gleanings from Yesterday's Readings

 

 

From: Oxsan
Date: 30 Oct 2002
Time: 15:11:39

Yesterday was a day of reading. I did not feel well, and I spent the day curled up with a number of books reading from first one and then the other. As usual when I read I had a notepad at hand and jotted down the words new to me or thoughts that I deemed interesting inspired by the reading. I have reproduced this notepad below so that you can all see what some of the simple things I had to look up and what interested me. Some of it is foreign language I had to look up.

Tribulis terrestis Since I was a small child I have been familiar with a little ground-hugging weed with peek-a-boo tiny yellow flowers and small perfect leaves of a dark olive green that produces a seed pod that we kids always called "stickers" and that hurt like hell when you got one in your foot. I have also heard then called "goatheads". They have three points that are so distributed that they always land on the ground with one point straight up ready to pierce a child's foot or a dog's paw. While reading "The Voice of the Desert" by Joseph Wood Krutch I learned that the scientific name of this weed is Tribulis terrestis and that it was imported to America from Asia. When I had cows here on the farm I was surprised to see that the cows readily ate the plant and seemed to prefer it to coastal Bermuda.

Deunme This is a strange word I encountered in "A Coffin For Dimitrious", a novel by Eric Ambler, and a very good one. I don't know what language it is in. It is not in any of my dictionaries but I found a definition on Google which was "A person born a Jew but converted to Islam". And that fits the context. Ambler defines it about the same way.

avec de la glace I knew this without looking it up but wasn't sure enough not to do so. French

The Basis Of Many A Detective Story "A person who thinks he is in charge of his own destiny is in fact the sport of circumstances beyond his control". Eric Ambler

Rumanians " All Rumanians are spies. The trick is to find out who they spy upon and to whom they report." This was a personal memory that crept in. A Swiss tomato buyer in Bangui Central Africa approached me once and asked me in German if I was a spy. When I told him I was not he stated that a Rumanian spy had told him the day before that I was a spy and then added the sentence above.

Why the Piraeus? Piraeus is the seaport for Athens Greece and lies about 14 km away from the heart of the city. "A Coffin for Dimitrious" is the second novel I have read in recent memory that always refers to it as "the" Piraeus. Why the "the"?

Attempted assassinations The reason no one is tried for attempted assassination is that those who attempt an assassination and fail do not survive to reach trial. Eric Ambler min "A Coffin..."

Assassinations The important thing to know about assassinations is not who fired the shot but who paid for the bullet.--Eric Ambler in "A coffin...".

Baroque Look for the baroque in human affairs and you will find an interesting story. Eric Ambler in "A coffin..."

Salop! I have completely failed on this. I have learned from Google that Salop is an accepted abbreviation for Shropshire (although I can't understand why) but that is not the context in which it is used in Ambler’s book. There, in a conversation in a nightclub in Sofia the proprietress of the club screams "Get out! I don't want you here! Salop! Salop!" It may be Turkish, Greek or Bulgarian. It is a mystery.

La Vierge The virgin

Macquillage The art of applying cosmetic make-up.

Thoughts gleaned from a day of reading.