It’s been another fine sunny day but very cold. I think the outside temperature was registered here at -4° when I got up this morning. By midday we had reached a “high” of 0° but it’s predicted to be back to -5° by 8.00 tonight. But as it’s still a dry cold, for the moment anyway, the footpaths and pavements are mostly passable.
I walked to the market this morning so that I could catch a bus from there and go to Granddaughter Number One’s house. We had arranged for a plumber to call in and sort out her erratic heating system. Her housemate is away attending a sister’s graduation ceremony and Granddaughter Number One’s anxiety issues had her in a bit of a state about seeing the plumber on her own. So I was called upon to be her support system. I was also incidentally the person who forked out £40 callout charge for the plumber to tell us the problem was the timer switch which nobody had thought to check!! The radiators had been bled, the boiler pressure had been checked, the thermostat had been examined (by my daughter and Granddaughter Number One and others) but no-one had noticed a little switch on the middle of the timer mechanism. Now I want to know who switched it on in the first place as I am pretty sure they did not have problems with the heating last winter. Hmmm!
When we had a problem with our boiler recently our plumber, not the one who visited Granddaughter Number One today, examined the boiler, told us how to reset it if it played up, suggested we probably need a service (in the process of being arranged with him) and departed without charging us a penny. Clearly a man with a different view of life!
After the plumber had left Granddaughter Number One’s house, she and I took her dog for a walk along the canal towpath. The canal was rather frozen. Granddaughter Number One reminisced about being at primary school and having yearly lectures about the dangers of frozen canals and ponds. She pointed out to me places where her housemate has managed to slip and slide in the last week. And then we got to a point where she suggested turning back rather than crossing the bridge as the path on the other side of the canal was just a sheet of ice. Neither of us fancied a dip in the canal today.
Moving on to other matters, I found this article about how the English language has been enriched by additions from other languages. Some of the words which have made their way into the Oxford English Dictionary, such as “lepak” (to loiter aimlessly) from Malay, “deurmekaar” (confused, muddled) from Afrikaans, “kaveera” (a plastic bag) from Luganda, and “whāngai” (an adopted child and the adoption itself) from Māori, are words I have never heard used. I must move in the wrong circles.
But English has a long history of appropriating words from other languages. “Schadenfreude” and other German words are in common use but even old, long-established words like “chamber” came originally from French. My daughter’s family sprinkle their conversation with tiny bits of Cantonese - her partner’s parents came from Hongkong long ago. And English, of course, has reciprocated, giving words to other languages, often words that have changed their use in the process, such as “parking” for a car park and “camping” for a camp site in both French and Spanish. The French will comment on someone’s “look”. But among my favourites are the Franglais or Spanglish adaptations of English words, such as the “French” verb “relooker” - to give something a new look, a makeover I suppose - and the “Spanish” for “jogging” - “el footing”. Computer terminology is a prime example: the Italian for “to click” is “cliccare”, on computers anyway!
Aren’t languages fun?!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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