Then, by 12:30 p.m. the sun was bright in a clear sky. As it raked down this bank, it caught the emerging green shoots in a dramatic, stage-lighting effect. Rarely has the expression "blades of grass" seemed so appropriate. Or maybe "light-sabres of grass" would be better.
Without the barrier, of course, it would be nothing...
Later, as I drove home, a hailstorm pounded on the roof of my car. The hailstones were falling so hard they were invisible, and appeared to be pinging up out of the road, like popcorn. By the time I got home, the sun was out again. Perfectly normal April weather, of course. However, yesterday and today things turned weird as the "Saharan Smog" enveloped the South Coast, somehow muffling everything in a blanket of smoky fog. You can feel the soft grit on your teeth after even a short walk. I decided not to risk scratching my lens coatings ...
13 comments:
I'm not sure mock-apologetic suits you Mike (though it is very English). I think you should just tough it out.
OTPB - and proud!
Struan,
I have no idea what you're talking about... Have you taken strong drink, sir?
Mike
Voltarol and Abba medleys.
'Obsessed with plastic barriers' - embrace the true you.
Ah, so not "Oblique Type Plating Barrel", "Oil Tight Push Button", or even "Ovine Trophoblastic Protein B", then?
I think I'm going to start banning people for being too obscure by half...
Mike
Typ.
It just gets obscurer...
TYP: "Other features share the same characteristic. For example, if the drawing shows 8 holes on a bolt circle, and just one is dimensioned, with "TYP" or "(TYP)" following the dimension label, it means that that hole is typical of all 8 holes; in other words, it means that the other 7 holes are that size also."
typ: "used in Texting, Acronym, Internet slang meaning type, Thank You Partner, to you personally."
Not to mention Ten Year Plan, Tribal Youth Program, Take Your Pick, Talking Yellow Pages, throwed yung playa, Timon y Pumba (Lion King), Trioedd Ynys Prydein (Triads of the Island of Britain -- Welsh gangstas)...
A different mix of medication and music is called for. Maybe co-codamol and Blondie?
Mike
Swedish teenage slang.
The 'y' is sort of welsh, pronounced like a French 'u' in 'tu', or a German 'ü'.
It really means a type or class of thing, but has morphed wildly in the time I've been living here. In proper, but informal usage it can now mean 'approximately', but teens use it as a random interjection, like 'like' or 'y-know'.
On its own, as a response, from the studied vagueness of teenage rebellion, it can mean sympathetic agreement, or complete non-interest - 'whatever'.
Good to know.
But why Abba -- is music nationalized in Sweden? Is the painkiller for the Abba, by any chance?
Mike
Two of my offspring were singing last night in a show whose theme was Swedish pop exports.
And my knees hurt. Worse, strong drink just makes them hurt more. Drugs and grumpiness seem to work for now.
Little did I know, but 'typ' has already been the subject of a doctoral thesis, and a local one at that. You can probably get this faster than I can:
https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/slcs.133.13ros/details
"It is also demonstrated that typ is a member of a class of taxonomic lexemes particularly prone to grammaticalization, as attested in English, French, Russian and Italian."
I wonder if there's a "woteva" thesis somewhere?
Hundreds I would guess.
By the way, I like the photo.
Oh, that old thing... The photos are really just bait for the comments ;)
Mike
Typ
So, that's, sort of, a meme, kinda thing?
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