Superstitious terminology!

I seem to remember being told, long ago, that the Cape of Good Hope was so named because so many ships sank going round it that they decided to give it a positive, optimistic name that would maybe placate whatever gods kept sinking those ships. The Pacific Ocean was similarly given its name in an attempt to make crossing it more peaceful. Or so I was given to understand. And now we have storms with names. Is this an attempt to work a similar kind of magic? When Eleanor comes battering the roof tiles in the wee, small hours do we feel less unkindly towards her because she has a name? Better the devil you know ... or at least one you have given a name to! Somewhere deep inside ourselves we are still in touch with our inner primitive superstitions!

Eleanor may have woken us up in the night with her howling but as I went out for a run this morning I reflected that we have once again got off lightly. Eleanor must have blown herself out a little further to the West. We have had a few small branches blown off trees but no trees blown over and no power cuts. My fingers are crossed and I am touching wood as I write such a statement. No point in tempting fate!

Up in scotland, where it is generally colder than it is here, a baby polar bear has been born in the Highland Wildlife Park. There’s that naming thing again: what kind of name is Victoria for a polar bear? Anyway, Victoria has given birth to a cub, or possible two, but nobody is going in for a closer confirmatory look as polar bears are ridiculously private mothers and if she feels her privacy has been violated Victoria might abandon her cub. The park employees will do minimum intervention until Victoria emerges from her den with her cub or cubs. What is it with bears, well specialist ones like polar and panda? No wonder they are endangered species!

Skimming through the papers online I came across Sara Pascoe writing about resolutions. Her comments and opinions about resolutions are not all that interesting to me but I was amused by her definitions of a certain area of terminology. She wrote about being at a party:

“A man was talking, and I was listening politely because he was a friend of a friend. “Friend of a friend” is an excellent expression, it passively clarifies: “I know them … but I don’t like them”. An “acquaintance” is someone we haven’t decided if we like or not yet. An “associate” is a drug dealer. A “friend of a friend” is an idiot at a party you must tolerate ...”

She also jogged my memory about something else New Year related. “When I was a small child,” she wrote, “we were allowed to wait up until midnight on 31 December. Then as the TV chimed, Dad would run to the front door and open it, welcoming the New Year air. This is the kind of entertainment you make in poor families, and cry to your therapist about when you’re rich. My sister Cheryl reminded me of this tradition at the very end of last year and then my dad Whatsapped us a picture of his open door at 12.01am.”

Now, when I was a child, we too were allowed to wait up until midnight on December 31st. As midnight bonged, my mother would go out of the back door, run round to the front door and knock. We would then let her in, along with the piece of coal and the loaf of bread she carried. She was the member of the family with the darkest hair and tradition had it that the “first footer” of the New Year should have dark hair if the year was to bring good luck to the family. She brought coal so that the house would always be warm and bread so that there would always be plenty to eat.

Now, what was I saying about being in touch with our inner primitive superstitions?