Hello. I
hope it’s not too late to wish you a happy, healthy, prosperous and well
published 2026!
Just sharing
a few idle thoughts, the tenuous link between them being that they are linked
to the fascinating way we use language, often in ways that don’t make logical
sense.
For one
thing, why do we insist on calling it a ‘duvet’ when the French call it ‘une
couette’? If we’re going to steal from other languages, we could at least do so
correctly! For years the adverts for Audi cars ended with the phrase ‘Vorsprung
durch technik… as we say in Germany’. I once asked a German student what that
phrase meant and he looked at me blankly. He’d never heard that phrase before
and insisted that they would never say it in Germany!?!
This
morning, quarter of an hour before I was due to give an online lesson to a
couple of Spanish students, we had a power cut and therefore no internet
connection. I sent an email explaining the situation to the teaching agency I
work with. The reply asked me whether I thought we should cancel the lesson, or
whether I would be able to sign on in five or ten minute or not. I wasn’t sure
if I should feel complimented or exasperated at the thought that they believed
I could psychically predict how long a power cut would be.
There’s a
phrase I’ve heard used many times, though one occasion that sticks particularly
clearly in my mind was when I heard a lady passionately describing a heated
discussion she’d had and declared, “And then, she turns around and says…” My
first thought was to wonder if that meant that the lady she’d been arguing with
now had her back to her. How rude. No wonder lady number one was upset. Alternatively,
was object-of-derision lady originally facing away from deriding-lady and had she
now turned around to confront her? More bizarrely, did she perhaps spin around
balletically through 360 degrees, believing this would add drama, weight and
credibility to her cause? As on other occasions I was too timid to interrupt
deriding-lady, who was now if full flow, to explore these options with her, which
on reflection was probably for the best.
I also find
it funny when people say things like, ‘It was the last place I looked’. Would
you continue looking for something you’ve already found? When someone for
example ask a lady, ‘Can you give me your number?’ I always want to say ‘One…
there’s only one of her’. Do you perhaps want her phone number?’ I’m
also tempted to pick a chair up off the floor when someone says, ‘Pull up a
chair’. Shouldn’t it be ‘pull along a chair?’ My long-suffering wife
often insists, when sharing a cake or such like, ‘you have the bigger half’.
Well in my defence on that last one, I do sometimes teach maths. Wouldn’t it be
somehow wonderful though if the concept of ‘the bigger half’ could be
introduced into the GCSE syllabus? Technically inaccurate, though real life.
A comment
that amused my wife recently was when she asked about the length of a coat
being sold online. The brilliantly unhelpful response was, ‘Well, I’m five foot
two and it comes down to my knees’. In my case I can’t help wondering if those
are metric knees or imperial?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve just self-published
what’s effectively a work of many years, a compilation of ideas I’ve used to inspire
creative writing called ‘Reluctant Writers Resource’. What amuses me most, as
it contains many sections, is that the paperback version weighs over a
kilogramme!*
The original
idea was to provide ‘an idea a week to stimulate creative writing’, with the
aim of giving teachers springboards for writing to encompass the 38 weeks of
the school year, though in the end there are a lot more than 38 sections. The example
pieces used to get the children’s creative juices flowing vary in length and
complexity but the core of them are deliberately short, with the aim of not
outfacing the children and supporting them in believing they could write pieces
of similar length. I’ve road tested the ideas in many schools in the UK and
abroad and they’ve always worked well. Many teachers told me that they’d never
seen their children, including the reluctant writers, produce so much work!
*At least
there’s one way in which it’s a weighty tome!
Kindle ASIN
: B0GF8RQ7WX
Paperback
ISBN : 979 – 8241950987
Hardback
ISBN : 979 - 8242528680
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