Pictures of snow and some reflections on words.

Well, the snow is still around. Apparently the temperature hit record lows last night. I looked out at some point in the middle of the night and the sky was clear as clear could be. Stars everywhere. Hence the low temperatures. Apart from little forays to buy essentials from the local shop, we are staying in. Here are some pictures of the snow, taken during our most recent forays. 

 

 






The other day, after I had expressed my disappointment in the pope, Perry commented on the words disappointed and disgruntled. If "dis" means "opposite of", where do we get words like that? So I did a little research. Here we go. Disappointment: "The feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of hopes or expectations to manifest." It seems that it comes from old French "desapointer", literally to remove from office - to "unappoint", as it were. By the late 15th century it came to mean a sense of general frustration and by the mid 18th a sense of dejection. There you go. 

Disgruntled, disgruntlement - first used in 1862 - are a different kettle of fish. I always like to include disgruntled in my set of words which look like negatives but don't have a positive. Just as people can be "unkempt" but never "kempt", so you never hear of any just being "gruntled", but apparently that might have been possible in the past. It is believed to come from a Middle English word "gruntle", meaning to grunt. "Dis" is used here as an intensifier (technical language stuff this!), making an emotion stronger. So if you are gruntled, you are grunting and moaning about something, and disgruntled, means that you are even more dissatisfied. The Spanish use "re", usually implying a repeated action, is used in this way sometimes: "rebueno" = really good, not good repeated. I think I have come across "rematar", not to rekill but to kill off. Oh, the joy of language! 

In the post office the other day, they were selling coins and replicas of medals, all listed as "collectibles". Phil stopped and commented, somewhat disgruntled, that it surely should be "collectables". (He is just as picky and pedantic about words as I am!) Finally I got around to googling the whole business. One source told me this: "Both are considered acceptable: Although "collectable" is the spelling listed first by the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary observes that the "-ible" form is also valid, and has come to be common usage in the United States." 

So it's probably another Americanism that has crept in. One forum about spelling said the answer was simple: you just had to use your spellchecker, which would give you the "..ible" form. Well, of course! Just as it gives me "color" and "center"! That doesn't make it correct though. By the way, my much-maligned autocorrect just tried to change "center" to "centre". I love it! 

Here's another bit of nonsense. Daniel J Levitin in the Observer yesterday was writing about the overload of information we are faced with in the modern world and how our brains do not cope with it. Not just me then? We are at a point where having an unread email in your inbox while working on your computer can prevent you from concentrating on the job in hand. 

Multitasking is not good for you, according to this article. One lot of research shows that "the cognitive losses from multitasking are even greater than the cognitive losses from pot-smoking". Who knew? Neuroscientists, seemingly! 

A neuroscientist has found that learning new information while multitasking "causes the new information to go to the wrong part of the brain". (He doesn't say that for some people getting new information into the brain at all is very difficult!) He goes on, "if students study and watch TV at the same time, for example, the information from their schoolwork goes into the striatum, a region for storing new procedures and skills, not facts and idea. Without the distraction of TV, the information goes into the hippocampus, where it is organised and categorised in a variety of ways, making it easier to retrieve." 

Why did I not have this I formation when I used to argue with my daughter about doing her homework while watching Eastenders? Would she have taken any notice? I doubt it. 

And finally there is this: "most people under thirty think of email as an outdated mode of communication used only by 'old people'. In its place they text, and some still post to Facebook." However, "many people under twenty now see Facebook as a medium for the older generation." 

Suddenly I feel very ancient. I need to go and write an old fashioned letter to a friend.