Are you a Christian? How do you know?

One of the things I’ve decided about Christianity is that anybody who calls themselves a Christian is a Christian. There really is no authority that says otherwise. Sure, there are authorities. There are multiple authorities. I bet there’s someone reading this right now who would tell me they know how to define someone into or out of Christianity. There do seem to be rules. I’ve had them enumerated for me by one or another helpful Christian in person, and there are more books than you’d ever be able to read, and more TV programs than you’d ever be able to watch, and more radio … Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. 

But they don’t all agree, do they? They can’t all be Christian then. Or. They are all Christian, every Christian as Christian as every other. As each asserts themselves to be.

In his neat explainer Sapiens Yuval Harari offers this take on Christian history:

[I]f we combine all the victims of [the Roman Empire’s] persecutions [of Christians], it turns out that … the polytheistic Romans killed no more than a few thousand Christians. In contrast, over the course of the next 1,500 years, Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.

Now, I’ve often blamed Christians for all the crimes of Christianity. Christians are certainly responsible for much evil in the world. Yet there are as well nice Christians. Sweethearts, helpful, kind, compassionate. They consider themselves Christian. I can’t just call Christianity the source of evil if there are nice Christians who find it a font of encouragement for practicing love. People seem to find motivation for doing evil — and doing good — in all sorts of ideologies (just another way of saying “religion,” according to Yuval Harari). 

Thus I have decided, as I said above, that it is not my business to police who is and who is not a Christian. Never will I remonstrate against anyone who goes against the supposed tenets of Christianity. The tenets of Christianity are the business of people who call themselves Christian. Those who kill over their disagreements need to be prosecuted for murder. But the disagreement itself is nothing I need have an opinion about. 

source:

Sapiens: a brief history of humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

2015. HarperCollins, New York

the weather in a bell

There are lots of little facts wandering around in the world. Sometimes they come packaged neatly and in ways that make you go huh. 

During World War Two, BBC News was broadcast to Nazi-occupied Europe. Each news programme opened with a live broadcast of Big Ben tolling the hour — the magical sound of freedom. Ingenious German physicists found a way to determine the weather conditions in London based on tiny differences in the tone of the broadcast ding-dongs. This information offered invaluable help to the Luftwaffe. When the British Secret Service discovered this, they replaced the live broadcast with a set recording of the famous clock.

The clock struck one and down he run.

source:

Sapiens: a brief history of humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

2015. HarperCollins, New York

word of the day: circumvention

word of the day: circumvention

Margery Sharp must have had pointed out to her the challenges to a child’s comprehension that her vocabulary presented. As the Rescuers series progresses there are fewer words that are mysteries to me, anyway. I suspect she consciously chose to present fewer such challenges. And sometimes Sharp herself provides a full definition, not just the context that offers clues.

Circumvention means getting around something, as railway engineers may route a track around a mountain, or river mouth, or even stretch of bog, instead of pushing straight ahead. It is often the most practical and safest course, quite apart from saving money. There is a great deal to be said for circumvention, if no loss of principle is involved; why bash one’s head against a brick wall, for instance, if a little further on there’s a gate? Of course circumventing rather than opposing head-on some unjust tyrannous law is something else again, and less to be recommended.

source: 

Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1972. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: in full fig

word of the day: in full fig

Ah, the happy ending! And what is a more classic happy ending than a wedding? Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society attend the event at the Embassy tucked into the pockets of the best suit of the Boy (never named!) who is Miss Bianca’s devoted attendant (too undignified to call her a pet). The Boy’s father and mother are dressed up, too, of course.

The Ambassadress … wore peach-color silk and a hat with a peach-colored ostrich feather. The Ambassador, who gave [the bride] away, to do her honor got into full Diplomatic fig. So they all looked their best.

definition (Online Etymology Dictionary): "dress, equipment," 1823, in phrase in full fig; hence "condition, state of preparedness" (1883). Said to be an abbreviation of figure (n.), perhaps from the abbreviation of that word in plate illustrations in books, etc. According to others, from the fig leaves of Adam and Eve.

source: 

Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1972. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: stuggy

word of the day: stuggy

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society are searching for a little girl who has gone missing. Every lead they have followed up has proved worthless, and time is running out. Fruitlessly running about will just wear you down, argues Bernard, worrying particularly after the refined Miss Bianca’s health. 

‘Though the situation I admit appears hopeless,’ said she, ‘I still intend to see it through. Do you, my dear Bernard, turn in as soon as you like, and I for one shan’t blame you —‘

‘If you mean you’d rather have me out of the way,’ interrupted Bernard, ‘I shan’t blame you, Miss Bianca!’

‘No, no!’ cried Miss Bianca — now looking up and observing [Bernard’s] whiskers. By comparison with her elegant, almost antenna-like own, Bernard’s were so short and stuggy, usually only a flat-iron attached could make them droop. But so desperate now was his apologeticalness, they positively flopped. How could Miss Bianca fail to soften towards him — her old, faithful companion in so many other (more successful) adventures? She couldn’t.

‘If I spoke curtly,’ she apologized in turn, ‘pray forgive me! And indeed your advice is extremely sensible, except that we both of us need a rest.’

definition (Collins dictionary): British dialect stout

source: 

Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1972. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: adit

word of the day: adit

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have been looking for  a little girl who has gone missing. They follow a lead through a rough tunnel, but upon emerging and asking a local if a girl has been seen passing that way, they are told no, no little girls. Determined to retrace their steps,

with a hurried but courteous adieu [to the local, Miss Bianca] ran back towards the adit, and Bernard of course followed. He was pretty dauntless himself, but actually it was one of the bravest things they’d either of them ever done, to leave the upper air and plunge back into the deep, dark, pickaxe-booby-trapped … brute of a Main Drain [tunnel.]

definition (Merriam-Webster): a nearly horizontal passage from the surface in a mine

source: 

Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1972. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: asseverate

word of the day: asseverate

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society are on the hunt for a missing little girl. They have tromped through a sewer tunnel that’s in the process of being dug and have come out at a guardhouse where they run into an old acquaintance, a water-rat.

‘May I ask whether during the last few hours — say two or three — you happen to have observed a little girl, probably carrying a doll, emerge from the hole just behind us?’ [asked Miss Bianca.]

The water-rat reflected.

‘Two-three hours, is it? Four at least I’ve been on station here . . . Aye, I’d have observed she all right!’

Miss Bianca held her breath . . . 

‘Certain sure!’ he decided.

‘But did you?’ pressed Miss Bianca eagerly.

‘No,’ said the water-rat.

‘But are you quite, quite positive?’ pressed Miss Bianca.

‘Naught larger than an earthworm,’ asseverated the water-rat, ‘and certainly carrying no doll!’

[ellipses in original]

definition (Merriam-Webster): to affirm or declare positively or earnestly

source: 

Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1972. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: purler

word of the day: purler

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society are very good friends, but one gets the sense Bernard wishes they were more than just friends. Still, he considers her above his station, and is too shy to hint that they could be more intimate.

The bus they are taking pulls up to a curb. 

Tripping down beside [Bernard] at the stop opposite the Embassy [where the mice live], [Miss Bianca] lightly brushed his whiskers with her own — which so acted upon his sensibilities, he got off on the wrong foot and took a purler, but fortunately there wasn’t much traffic about.

definition (lexico): informal British. a headlong fall

source:

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: cockchafer

word of the day: cockchafer

Miss Bianca and Bernard have come to the Antarctic on a mission. Some things go well, some things don’t. At this point they are clinging to a wreath of chrysanthemums thrown into the sea to honor the loss of a ship’s crew. “[The] red-and-white wreath [was] frozen almost to red-and-white coral, and floating just like a life-belt!”

The resemblance to a life-belt catches the attention of a passing helicopter, and an adventurous member of the crew volunteers to be lowered on a winch to investigate. 

Says the pilot, ‘[D]own you go, my gallant and intelligent lad — though I warn you we can’t allow more than two shakes!’

No longer was needed, for the Mechanic to waver down like a cockchafer on a thread, and then with a strong right arm to grasp the chrysanthemum wreath and bear it (all unwittingly bearing Bernard and Miss Bianca too) safe back!

definition (wikipedia): a European beetle also called a doodlebug or Maybug. Children since antiquity have played with cockchafers. In ancient Greece, boys caught the insect, tied a linen thread to its feet and set it free, amusing themselves to watch it fly in spirals.

source:

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: grot

word of the day: grot

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have come to Antarctica on a mission. They are being helped by a troop of penguins who think aiding prisoners sounds delightful. Shortly after getting the mice through a spot of trouble, the enthusiastic penguins invite their new friends to a penguin ball. 

Adelie penguins lead very full social lives. Their engagement books, if they’d had engagement books, would have been as stuffed as [an] Ambassador’s. … [W]ithout waiting for formal acceptance of their kind invitation, they at once carried Bernard and Miss Bianca along with them to their Palais de Danse in an icicle-chandeliered grot.

definition (the free dictionary): a grotto

Although Margery Sharp seems to be using “grot” in a neutral fashion, “grot,” according to the dictionaries, also has connotations of dirt and rubbish, i.e., “grotty.” However, Sharp most likely had in mind a poetic turn, as it seems “grot” is used the way “o’er” is, to cut off a syllable that hinders the meter. 

source:

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: Bob’s your Uncle

word of the day: Bob’s your Uncle

While in Antartica on a mission, Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society meet some penguins enthusiastic about joining the club, their not being mice not withstanding. 

‘Forty new members at one fell swoop! I’ll enroll ‘em at once.’

‘Forty indeed!’ murmured Miss Bianca. ‘Just think of all the paperwork involved!’

‘Don’t bother about that,’ said practical Bernard, ‘there isn’t any paper. I’ll enroll ‘em verbally, all in one bunch.’

[I]t was Bernard’s turn to make a speech — or rather to issue a few concise instructions, which he did without delay.

‘All those wishing to become members of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, raise the right flipper,’ directed Bernard.

Every penguin did so. Some in their enthusiasm raised both.

‘Proposed by the Secretary, seconded by the Treasurer, carried unanimously and Bob’s your Uncle,’ said Bernard briskly.

definition (wikipedia): "Bob's your uncle" is a phrase commonly used in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries that means "and there it is" or "and there you have it". Typically, someone says it to conclude a set of simple instructions or when a result is reached. The meaning is similar to that of the French expression "et voilà!" or the American "easy as pie" or "piece of cake".

The origin of the phrase, the wikipedia entry goes on to say, seems to be an act of nepotism in which a British prime minister (named Robert) appointed a nephew to a prominent position. The nephew got the job too easily, then. A wikipedia editor casts some doubt on this origin story by saying the first known instance of the phrase appearing in print was when it was used as the title of a musical revue forty years later. The phrase likely had wide currency by the time it was used as a title, but if indeed it was coined in reaction to the prime minister’s special favors it seems odd that it took forty years for anyone to write it out. 

An essay at World Wide Words also recounts the prime minister version and also doubts it. “[E]verybody who has looked into the history of the expression has ended up baffled. Bob has had many slang associations down the years, often linked to crime, gambling or deceit.”

I first encountered “— and Bob’s your uncle!” some thirty years ago when a coworker gave me instructions on how to fill out some paperwork. Do this, do that, and Bob’s your uncle! I’ve always been curious where the phrase came from. 

source:

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: glissade

word of the day: glissade

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have come to Antarctica on a mission but they are now prisoners themselves. A polar bear cub (don’t ask) has built a snow castle around them. 

As is well known, mice can run up almost anything — Hickory-dickory-dock, a mouse ran up a clock — but the snowflaky interior of the castle walls crumbled into particles under even Bernard’s and Miss Bianca’s minuscule weight: the most Bernard achieved was about three inches before he came tumbling back, and Miss Bianca (half his size), barely four ere she more elegantly glissaded, but still back.

define (dictionary.com): a skillful glide over snow or ice in descending a mountain, as on skis or a toboggan.

The mice need a better plan of escape.

source:

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: boob

word of the day: boob

Miss Bianca and Bernard, representing the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, have come to the Antarctic to rescue a man stranded in the icy wastes.

While there the two mice run into a polar bear family. At first, though Bernard suggests he sees a bear, Miss Bianca pooh-poohs the notion. After all, as “she reminded him,” polar bears live in the Arctic, not the Antarctic. “‘In the Antarctic they don’t exist,’” she insists. 

But when the bears reveal themselves by discussing their own expedition to the far side of the Earth (“an Exchange Visit,” the mother bear calls it), Miss Bianca has to change her tune. Being as Miss Bianca has the greater education, Bernard often feels tentative about his knowledge. Yet in this case he is vindicated. “Bernard was so glad to find he hadn’t boobed.” 

definition (dictionary.com): British. to blunder.

source:

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

word of the day: dekko

word of the day: dekko

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have taken it upon themselves to rescue an old friend left behind in Antarctica after the rest of his scientific expedition abruptly went home. 

Accidentally stranded themselves, the two mice take shelter in a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare. 

Bernard, taking a dekko outside at p. 498, [took] an involuntary shower under a dollop of ice melting from the Leopold Edition’s eaves.

Miss Bianca suggests switching camp from the book to the abandoned tent of the Antarctic expedition. 

‘Within that larger tent beside which we first observed [the old friend] I shouldn’t be surprised to find all sorts of provisions! Moreover ’tis quite close at hand,’ she added, slipping out at p. 560 to take a dekko herself.’

definition (Collins dictionary): Brit. a look; glance

source:

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Erik Blegveld

1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA

fiction makes us human

Yuval Noah Harari is less parsimonious about who gets to be human than most. I wrote yesterday about a particular kind of tool use supposedly being the ultimate definition of what it means to be human. Harari’s definition appears to be less restrictive.

Harari starts his history of humanity by talking about other human species, and Harari is willing to include not only Neanderthals among the humans but our likely common ancestor, Homo erectus. Another species or two. And concede that there may be some we haven’t yet discovered. From a few human species, however, we are presently down to one, our own, Homo sapiens. 

Harari speculates about what distinguishes Homo sapiens (or, “Sapiens,” as he sometimes puts it) from the other human species, but he feels pretty solid that what probably differentiated us from other human species is what currently makes us unique among the animals: an ability to live in fiction.

Th[e] ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language. It’s relatively  easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. [In contrast, y]ou could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.

Religion, according to Harari, is a subset of the fictions humans live. We also live the fictions of limited liability companies, human rights, nations. 

Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. … Sapiens … liv[e] in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees, and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations, and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees, and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.

source:

Sapiens: a brief history of humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

2015. HarperCollins, New York

What makes us human?

What makes us human? Coming up with definitions of what makes us human. Clearly, if you haven’t come up with, or happily accepted, some dividing line between the human and the non-human — with yourself safely on the human side of the line — you aren’t human. 

There are two kinds of living things in the world — those that define themselves as human, and those that don’t. It’s rather parochial, isn’t it? It betrays a sense of anxiety over identity. What are the consequences of misdefining the human? 

Defining terms can be useful. But we fall into a trap of our own making when we think it’s all about the word. Settle on the right word, perfectly designed and defined, and you have the thing, you’ve got its number (so to speak). The namer has power over the named. How much power?

In a recent book about that other human species, the Neanderthal, the authors remind us of the changing definition of what it means to be human (while readily buying into the idea that pinning down that definition is vitally important):

The ability to make tools was once considered definitive of what separates humans from other animals. Now that we know that other primates and even birds use tools, this notion has changed, and it is now commonly thought that humans are defined by the ability to make tools that are designed to produce other tools.

Once we discovered that “man” wasn’t the only tool user or even tool maker, we had to find another definition of … man, was it? Humans? For now at least we can soothe the anxiety about the encroachment of other intelligences upon our safe separation from them by making the definition of the human just a tad bit more elaborate. Breathe easily, my friends, for once more we are behind the definitional wall, a wall far more impregnable than before, no doubt. 

The authors, by the way, were including Neanderthals among the humans, Neanderthal stone tools having been found that were used to make other stone tools. I suppose we can allow Neanderthals to be human at this late date. We can be generous. Where’s the harm in it?

source:

The Neanderthals Rediscovered: how modern science is rewriting their story

by Dimitra Papagianni & Michael A. Morse

2013. Thames & Hudson, New York, NY

word of the day: adumbrant

word of the day: adumbrant

Miss Bianca, leader of the Mouse Prisoners' Aid Society, is on a mission to The Orient (i.e., India) to rescue a boy who has been sentenced to be trampled by elephants. Plans are afoot, but it is just dusk and she must wait until the full moon’s light to execute (one might say). 

To pass the time in the garden where she waits Miss Bianca writes poetry. She imagines herself on elephant back.

‘Swinging high and low, where the tall grasses grow

In the shade of the sun!’

… ’You’ve got it the wrong way round,’ criticized [a nearby] lizard. ‘It ought to be “in the sun unafraid of the shade!”’

Miss Bianca was unused to composing poetry so to speak in public, and after this … interruption went on inside her head. 

‘No sweeter spot to wait in,

Relax and meditate in,

Till the long hours of waiting have run!’

M. B.

She composed several other verses, all in the same lulling rhythm, and in fact halfway through the fifth had lulled herself to sleep. … Miss Bianca … slept until past sundown and long after that, absolutely until the skies lightened with adumbrant moonrise.

definition (Oxford / Lexico): Casting shadows; shadowy, shady. In extended use: represented in outline; vague, indistinct.

I like the way Margery Sharp slips in some impromptu poetry workshop in the middle of the adventures. 

source:

Miss Bianca in the Orient

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Erik Blegved

1970. Little, Brown, & Co., New York

word of the day: de haut en bas

word of the day: de haut en bas

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have traveled to The Orient (an otherwise unnamed version of India) to rescue a boy who has been condemned to be trampled by elephants. 

Miss Bianca and Bernard have been separated, with Miss Bianca in the harem with the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and Bernard in the stables with some jolly local mice into polo. 

Bernard is surprised to find that Miss Bianca is on a mission by herself. Not wholly by herself, actually, as Miss Bianca has enlisted the help of two of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. But Bernard feels left out.

‘[Y]ou might have told me you were coming,’ said Bernard.

He sounded not only huffish but hurt. Miss Bianca ran lightly down Vanilla’s sari, to be able to talk to him face to face instead of de haut en bas. 

‘I thought you’d be playing polo,’ she explained. … ‘Isn’t it the Finals?’

definition (Cambridge Dictionary): If you look at someone or speak to someone de haut en bas, you do it in a way that shows you think you are superior to them. De haut en bas is French for "from high to low."

Margery Sharp seems to be using the literal meaning of de haut en bas, that is Miss Bianca is speaking to her friend Bernard from the arms of a human standing above him, while suggesting that Miss Bianca doesn’t want Bernard to feel she is speaking to him from the figurative meaning. Miss Bianca doesn’t want Bernard to think she’s talking down to him in any way, so she meets him at his level.

source:

Miss Bianca in the Orient

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Erik Blegved

1970. Little, Brown, & Co., New York

word of the day: poltroons

 word of the day: poltroons

Miss Bianca, leader of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, has come to The Orient (an unnamed country that may be India) to rescue a poor lad who has been condemned to be trampled by elephants. In the course of her mission Miss Bianca has befriended two attendants to the queen, and has asked their help getting to the elephant quarters. 

She says it will only take them a few minutes to ferry her there in a pocket. Realizing who she is dealing with Miss Bianca adds this exhortation: 

‘Only be brave —‘

‘Only we aren’t!’ cried Vanilla desperately. ‘We just aren’t brave — are we, Muslin?’

There was no need for Muslin’s affirmative nod. If Vanilla was shuddering again, Muslin’s teeth were now positively chattering. Never had Miss Bianca encountered such a brace of poltroons!

definition (Merriam-Webster): a spiritless coward 

A brace is “a pair of something, typically of birds,” and poltroon comes from poultry. So Miss Bianca is calling her friends a couple of chickens.

source:

Miss Bianca in the Orient

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Erik Blegved

1970. Little, Brown, & Co., New York

word of the day: bibelot

word of the day: bibelot

context: Miss Bianca of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society has come to The Orient (presumably Indian) to rescue a boy condemned to be trampled by elephants. In order to gather information and plot a strategy for the rescue Miss Bianca must first get in with the queen (or ranee). When Miss Bianca is presented to Her Majesty, the genteel mouse sees something that will help charm her new acquaintance.

[Miss Bianca’s] eye had been most fortunately caught by a little bibelot in the shape of a miniature harp standing on a low mother-of-pearl table beside the Ranee’s sofa-throne. Miss Bianca instantly ran up and struck a few chords. The strings, though of gold wire, responded sweetly to her touch: even though each pedal was a pearl, and thus dreadfully slippery, she managed to control them. First she played ‘Greensleeves’ …

definition (Merriam-Webster): a small household ornament or decorative object

source:

Miss Bianca in the Orient

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Erik Blegved

1970. Little, Brown, & Co., New York

word of the day: amour-propre

word of the day: amour-propre

The Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society is on a mission to “The Orient” to rescue a boy sentenced to be trampled by elephants for offending a haughty queen. The Orient reads as India, more or less, though a specific country is never named. 

Undercover Miss Bianca and Bernard have been brought before the queen (or ranee) as potential entertainment. The queen perks ups a bit, eager for novelty in her pampered yet tedious existence.

‘I suppose they can do something [asked] the Ranee — already impatient! ‘They can dance or sing or something?’

‘You can jolly well suppose again!’ muttered Bernard furiously. ‘The lady I have the honor to escort —‘

‘Hush!’ adjured Miss Bianca. ‘Is this a time for amour-propre? Impersonate a wandering minstrel!’

definition (Cambridge Dictionary): a belief and confidence in your own ability and value

Cleary Bernard doesn’t think the genteel Miss Bianca ought to lower herself to the status of a mere musician for hire, but should be accorded the respect due to a lady. Miss Bianca is more practical, and more chary of the Ranee’s moods. 

source:

Miss Bianca in the Orient

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Erik Blegved

1970. Little, Brown, & Co., New York

word of the day: boss

word of the day: boss

Miss Bianca and Bernard, two representatives of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have entered the salt mines in hopes of rescuing Teddy-Age-Eight (all they know of the boy is his name and age). Among the other features of the mine is a lake.

'[W]hat beauty!' murmured Miss Bianca. 'Oh, Bernard, observe the lake.'

The lake actually terminated their field of vision. Unrippled by any breath of air it gleamed like a silver shield, a low island in the center for boss. Round the edge, crusted salt formed elegant curlicues more delicate than the work of any jeweler.

definition (Merriam-Webster): a raised ornamentation (as on a belt or shield) : STUD

source:

Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines

by Margery Sharp

with illustrations by Garth Williams

1966. Little, Brown and Co., New York

word of the day: chilblains

word of the day: chilblains

Miss Bianca is trying to convince the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society to attempt the rescue of a prisoner from the salt mines. Very little is known about the person to be rescued, and that raises some objections. Miss Bianca insists, however, that —

'The sole relevant fact [is] that a salt mine is no place for a child! — How or why Teddy-Age-Eight got there, where he comes from, why the Education Authorities haven’t found him, I frankly confess I haven’t the slightest idea. Nor do I even speculate! He may be the heir to a fortune, or a waif and a stray; the victim of mistaken identity, or loss of memory; he may possess a thousand virtues, or a thousand faults; none of that concerns us. The sole relevant fact is that salt mines are no place for children — because just to begin with, they’d get chilblains.’

Miss Bianca was always wonderfully skillful in introducing the common touch. Every member of the Ladies’ Guild was on her side at once; they had to dress chilblains all winter, whenever a sink-pipe burst and their families rushed out skating without gloves.

definition (Mayo Clinic): Chilblains (CHILL-blayns) are the painful inflammation of small blood vessels in your skin that occur in response to repeated exposure to cold but not freezing air. Also known as pernio, chilblains can cause itching, red patches, swelling and blistering on your hands and feet.

I don’t think I ever got chilblains. My hands are sensitive to the cold, but I haven’t lived in a place that gets very cold. OK, yes, I did live in Anchorage, Alaska for my first three years, and I may have gotten chilblains then, but I don’t remember it. There have been times my hands got itchy after being exposed to cold. But swelling? Or blisters? I can’t recall such. 

Chilblains is one of those words I recognize from reading, but until now never looked up. It does mean more or less what I thought it meant. 

source:

Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines

by Margery Sharp

with illustrations by Garth Williams

1966. Little, Brown and Co., New York

Oz in poetry

If you use Oz in a poem, I will take note.

from “Heroin with an E” by Benjamin Garcia

… dull halo of dust

where the kitchen TV was // where you were once

entranced by Technicolor // Emerald City Oz

you were just a girl and couldn’t help but fall // asleep

before Dorothy even reached // the nodding flowers

dusk fielding the sepia window …

*

I preserved the line breaks. The double slashes are the poet’s. 

The passage captures a mood, doesn’t it?

source:

Thrown in the Throat

by Benjamin Garcia

2020. Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis MN

word of the day: cantle

word of the day: cantle

context:

Miss Bianca and Shaun of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society are riding a race horse in a rescue attempt.

[The race horse’s] tail streamed like a comet, the plaits of his mane like candle flames; from his nostrils (at least so one pedestrian asserted) flashed sparks of fire! Miss Bianca’s silvery fur blew about like snowflakes; Shaun, even in the lee of the cantle, had to hold his whiskers on …

definition (Merriam-Webster): the upward projecting rear part of a saddle

This makes eleven Word of the Day posts for one children’s book. I did four for the second book in The Rescuers series. I did three for the first. Margery Sharp doesn’t want dumb readers.

source:

The Turret

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Garth Williams

1963. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston

word of the day: coadjutator

word of the day: coadjutator

context:

Miss Bianca, the leader of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, is trying to get a race horse to join her in the rescue mission. When she introduces herself, Miss Bianca is surprised to find the horse has heard of her: “Miss Bianca’s distinguished services to humanity have made her famous indeed!” the horse says.

‘My own family tree boasts a famous lady also,’ said he, ‘though but collaterally. Her name was — Rosinante.’

‘The coadjutator of Don Quixote?’ supplied Miss Bianca swiftly.

‘Perhaps you have seen her portrait?’ said [the horse] with a smile. ‘Dear me, she’d hardly have won a Selling Plate! But it is the spirit that counts, even more than the bone; and it seems she had great magnanimity.’

“Coadjutator” seems to be a variant spelling of “coadjutor.”

coadjutor definition (Merriam-Webster): one who works together with another

Full understanding of this passage requires some sense of who Don Quixote is, what a Selling Plate is, and the meanings of the words coadjutator, collaterally, and magnanimity. A Selling Plate is, according to Wiktionary, “a horse race after which the winning horse is auctioned off.” I’d assumed it was a collector’s plate, or something more like a trophy or souvenir. Challenging for a child reader!

source:

The Turret

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Garth Williams

1963. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston