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