[status] patrician or pleb?

"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg and not live here with gentleman's children like us and eat the same meals as we do and wear clothes at our mamma's expense." [Jane Eyre]

So what's your immediate reaction? That the young lady is right and that the obnoxious teacher has been rightly put in his place or that what the obnoxious little madam needs is a good, sound spanking?

What confers status?

1 age and seniority, as in the case of this teacher;

2 specialized knowledge, like the senior mechanic who services your car;

3 job, as in the teacher and gentleman's daughter;

4 birth;

5 money;

6 intelligence and general ability;

7 what else?

Python always seem to have something pertinent to say on social issues so here's their take. Two pepperpots are sitting on a sofa, looking through an album of baby photos:

Mrs Nigger-Baiter Oh, yes, he's such a clever little boy, just like his father.

Mrs S D'you think so, Mrs Nigger-Baiter?

Mrs Nigger-Baiter Oh yes, spitting image.

[The door opens. The son comes in.]

Son Good afternoon, mother. Good afternoon, Mrs Nigger-Baiter.

Mrs Nigger-Baiter Ooh, he's walking already!

Mrs S Yes, he's such a clever little boy, aren't you? Coochy coochy coo ...

Mrs Nigger-Baiter Hello, coochy, coochy, coochy coo...

Mrs S He...llo, he...llo... (they tickle him under the chin)

Mrs Nigger-Baiter Oochy coochy. (the son smiles a little tight smile) Look at him laughing... ooh, he's a chirpy little fellow. Isn't he a chirpy little fellow ... eh? eh? Does he talk Does he talk, eh?

Son Yes, of course I talk, I'm Minister for Overseas Development.

This status question was thrown into sharp relief recently at my own employer, the Minister of Truth. We're a bit of a mutual admiration society and the mix is just right, a comfortable situation for both. I acknowledge his higher status and he acknowledges my expertise.

Trouble is with the drivers. They still retain the old Soviet notion that no man is higher than another and if they see half a chance to put themselves on a level with you, they take it. That's no problem for me because I love to chat with anyone.

What I didn't understand was that to "lower" yourself to that point over here loses you all respect with the more menial workers, who expect you to stay aloof. Result - one driver who started game playing and having jokes at my expense.

The matter was resolved quietly and he got the message but what he didn't get was that, irrespective of relative status, there's never any call to act disrepectfully, even to a political opponent. We need to accord the same attitude to a child of three as to a Prime Minister.

Just one man's point of view, of course.

Charlotte Bronte

[stylistica] not essential but adding spice

Spicing up your writing is not just a matter of learning or knowing these. They need to be "felt". This is a large and complicated field and only some are referred to below:

1. Imagery

a) metaphor: Substitution of one word for another

[Example: "the eye of heaven" for the sun]

b) simile: Explicit comparison

[Example: your eyes shine like the sun]

c) symbol: Concrete thing representing something abstract

[Example: the rose as a symbol of love; the cross as a symbol of Christian religion]

2. Devices that rely on the sound of the words

a) alliteration: Repetition of the first sound in two or more words

[Example: "A cold coming we had of it" T.S. Eliot; Journey of the Magi]

b) onomatopoeia: Sounds imitating the thing they refer to

[Example: The name cuckoo imitates the sound this bird makes]

3. Sentence construction

a) parallelism: The structure of successive sentences or phrases is the same

[Example: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. Winston Churchill]

b) anaphora: Obvious repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences.

[Example: " Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down, Though castles topple on their warders´ heads, Though palaces and pyramids do slope..." Shakespeare, Macbeth]

c) enumeration: A list of words, phrases or sub-clauses, usually employed to illustrate a comprehensive phrase or term by listing some of the elements it describes.

[Example: "I grant him bloody, luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful..." Shakespeare, Macbeth]

The enumeration may be in climactic order.

[Example: " ... businessmen who have lived five, ten, twenty years in America..." W.A.Henry, Against a Confusion of Tongues]

4. Various other stylistic devices

a) direct address: The author speaks directly to his reader – this device can often be recognized by the second person pronoun "you". The appeal to the reader may occasionally be intensified by the use of the imperative in direct address.

b) rhetorical question: The author asks his reader a "question", the answer to which is perfectly clear anyway. So its function is not that of a real question – it is to lead or force the reader into agreeing with the author´s views.

c) quotation: The quotation of experts, of public figures or from other texts serves to support the author´s ideas and lend them a higher degree of acceptability. (Sometimes an author may quote an "expert" who is not actually a specialist in the field the author is dealing with – this is known in classical rhetoric as an "argumentum ad verecundiam".)

d) allusion: The author does not quote directly from some other text – instead, he uses ideas, concepts and references from well-known texts or historical events in the hope that an educated reader will recognize them and see them as support for the author´s own ideas. One of the most common allusions is the biblical reference.

e) repetition of key words: An important idea or concept may be stressed by its repetition. The fairly simple trick is that the reader cannot help but realize that something must be important if it is mentioned often enough.

f) personification: The author speaks to an object or an abstract idea as if it were a person.

5. Devices that rely on features of the layout

Two features which should be mentioned here are:

a) capitalization: The author may choose to write nouns that he considers very important with a capital letter at the beginning. He may even use only capital letters in writing a key word.

b) italics: Printing words, phrases or even complete sentences in italics is one of the simplest and most effective ways of showing that they are important.

6. Two other specific devices

Zeugma is a device in which a verb or other part of speech is appropriate to a following word or phrase but is then also applied to a second (or even third) word or phrase, not strictly correctly but acceptably.

eg. She raised the blinds and [lifted] my spirits.

Syllepsis is like zeugma but the verb is used in a different way from the first to the second following word or phrase. This results in a humorous effect.

eg. He leaned heavily on the podium and stale jokes.

[feminism] a fine answer to a supposed detractor

Welshcakes has answered my posts on radicalism:

First of all, let us remember that throughout history, there would have been no change without those who were willing to be strident, to break the law for what they believed in and even to risk their lives for it.

In the following paragraph, if you take out the word "feminism", which claims the credit for women's advances and substitute the word "women" for the people who actually achieved it, then I agree that:

[Feminism], in winning the freedoms and rights that women in western countries now enjoy, was and is a necessary movement, for once freedoms have been won, they have to be protected.

Welshcakes, of course, correctly observes:

Where it all goes wrong, I believe, is when we say, “Ok, we’ve got those so now let’s get more rights and freedoms than men have.” I have never, for instance, gone along with the “wages for housework” idea for none of its proponents ever stopped to consider that single women have to do it as well, and certainly nobody was going to reward us.

This was my point all along. It was radicalism, not feminism, which I was attacking but feminists might tend to overlook that. The next part, strangely, I cannot agree with:

And, however “hard” running a home might be, it cannot, just cannot, be compared with competing in the ruthless, target-setting environment that is the world of work today.

I'm in this "ruthless, target-setting environment" now and I also have to run the home and of the two, I feel the latter is far harder, especially when there is a family. Welshcakes is an adept - just look at her productions - so she might feel the former is harder.

It's a lovely post and argues the case for feminism very well. The feminist lobby could do worse than to snap up her text, as JMB is doing and use it as a bulwark against the sorts of incursions I've seemingly been trying to make.

If you haven't already read it, here it is again.

[bigotry post] roll up and be insulted

The last bigots' post was done on purpose.

My next post might have a go at British men or maybe the gays or straights or maybe Man United or Green Bay Packers fans or the Scots or whoever.

It doesn't really matter - the Italian girls were close to hand so … Poor Tuscan Tony thought I was fisking him but quite the opposite, actually.

The ones I really have it in for are the killjoys who would legislate against anyone expressing his or her opinion. I don't think you fully appreciate over there in the west just how far these people have strangled the life out of western society and are tightening the PC noose more and more every day.

Say what you like but I'm in the land of free speech over here in the fSU [provided you go easy on Vlad the Impaler] and Britain, America and the Antipodes are now like Stalag 13.

In a western office, try saying to any girl, the more feminist the better: "Whoa, really love your butt - wanna shag?" and see what happens. Try saying it here and the girl would grin and get back to her work, striking that idiot off her eligible list.

Try saying over there: "I think you gays can do your biz to your heart's content but I don't think this country should be run by the homosexual mafia," and see how far you get. Try saying it here and they'd turn to each other and call you: "Ham", meaning "lowest form of coarse, uncultured beast", then get back to whatever they were up to.

Try saying that the aborigines are holding the Australian government to ransom over these ridiculous tribal land claims just because they think they'll make some cash out of it. Why don't they kick up a fuss over the Simpson Desert then? No money, eh?" You'd be drummed out of Australia or imprisoned for sedition.

Legislation to prevent a person saying what he feels. That's all this comes down to. You don't like what I say but instead of moving on, you try to invoke the law on me. So let's really open the throttle. Try these for size:

There was absolutely no holocaust and the Jews are holding the world to ransom - so there. Or this one - Islam is insidiously worming it's way into Europe. Let's think of another - Christians are narrow minded bigots. Atheists are irrational morons. What else? The English are greedy and don't wash. The Americans are stupid and have no sense of humour. The Scots want to have their cake and eat it too - [West Lothian]. The only concession to gaiety in Wales is a striped shroud. I'm going to discriminate against the Irish by refusing to. James Higham is a smelly, disgusting little man and he can't even write properly and he probably has a tiny willy. What else can I think up on the spot?

I've run out of ideas. Try this site.

Outraged: "These bigots have to be made to understand …"

Me: "Why so? Why must they be made to understand and what are they going to understand?"

Outraged: "Well they'll think twice after cooling their heels in prison, mark my words …"

Me: "You really think so? You've just given them free publicity, that's all."

Outraged: "Well, it's the principle of the matter. These people can't just run around spouting whatever bile they like…"

Me: "Uh-huh."

[italian girls] the time bomb factor

Mama and her bambinos
UPDATE: It's been pointed out to me today by certain Italians and Welshcakes has also drawn attention to it: "Grammar note, Mr Headmaster: [You do it to others, after all!] The plural of bambino is bambini but as they are all girls in the pic, it should, strictly speaking be bambine."
Thank you, m'lady.

Now this problem of Italian women we've all been grappling with. Just how real or how ridiculous is it? Tuscan Tony set the cat among the pigeons with his statement [and he lives over there]:

The intense diet of pasta and red wine has them playfully puppy-fat laden until the age of around 35, when they suddenly go up like auto-inflating liferafts.

This seemed unfair, even if popular wisdom did dictate that the Italian sweetie becomes the Italian balloon. So I tried to research it but it was so difficult to get hard data. Here is one from a medical record:

Italian women were shorter and fatter compared with age-matched Danish women, but in middle-age, had less abdominal fat distribution.

This seems to suggest that they put the weight on all over, especially in the arms and legs. A glance at the photo above seems to suggest though that it's more that their large frames get better covered, as nature intended, rather than trying to be anorexic any more.

And Italian men are noted for liking their women on the voluptuous side. Twiggy would have no place in Tuscany.

Now to the second major issue - is this post sexist, as Ellee might say?

Well, quite frankly, yes. It is obsessed with women because this blogger is interested in women's bodies, minds, souls and intelligent conversation. I'm afraid the statistics on the fatness of Italian men does not move me to quite the same degree.

And what?

The word "sexist", I feel, is an overused word, invoked at the drop of a hat and always with negative connotations. So let's liberate the word - set it free from its shackles!

Of course a man is going to prefer photos of women or talk about women or make love to them. Would you prefer me to be obsessed about men? I'd rather have a beer and an intelligent conversation with a man than talk with him about his body or sexuality.

I'd be interested in Ruthie Zaftig's take on this and Welshcakes Limoncello's. :)

[sherlock holmes] adventure of what?

Racking the brain trying to remember the Holmes story in which the events I'll describe took place. The thing is, it might have been one of Poirot's but I simply can't remember. I know that the man who tried to help had a partner, so that could be either Watson or Hastings.

Can you help me? Here's the plot, as briefly as I can put it:

Someone, possibly the mother, comes to Holmes [?] asking him to intervene - the daughter has got herself into the clutches of a charming rogue and the mother wants to stop the match. She's tried everything - reason, persuasion, threats, all to no avail of course.

Once a girl gets it into her head that a bad man is interested in her, something romantic turns her head so that reason flies out the window and the more the pressure is applied, the harder she digs her heels in and clings to him.

In this case, the rogue, [whose motivation I'm not entirely sure of - maybe he can't help consuming girls and spitting them out], has schooled her in all the possible people who'll come at her and what they'll say about him.

He explains everything about every possible incident [the ones which could possibly arise, that is] and puts his own slant on it. You know the type of thing - sitting on the edge of the settee, hands clutching, head bowed gravely and her young heart goes out to him.

Sure enough, they do come to her one by one and she "receives" them politely but haughtily.

"Yes, James warned me you would visit, so let me assure you, Mr. H, there is nothing you could possibly add to the wrongful slurs which have already been meted out to my James, the noblest man who ever walked the earth," etc. etc.

Impossible.

Another young woman accosts the silly young thing and in very direct language explains just what a womanizing beast "her James" really is. Same result. Head in the air:

"Yes, well, I can see how the machinations of a woman such as you and an earnest desire to malign and sully the reputation of …" etc.

Call in Holmes.

He has some failures and then hits on the only way. They purloin the rogue's personal diary and leave it where the girl will find it.

Game set and match.

In that diary were all his secret perversions, the way he womanizes for his own all-consuming need and so on. Relationship off and the rogue finally exposed.

So, if you can remember the story, please tell me. I'd be interested to read it again. Thanks.