| || child, doily, health, nausea, had an "ice" day.
Image from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
21 comments:
Aunt Nancy was the one to turn to
When someone in the family ailed.
She was a nurse by training,
And her bedside manner never failed.
When a child wasn't healthy,
She knew just what to do.
Peppermint for nausea,
Chicken soup for the flu.
The day Father had an ankle sprain
An ice pack was applied.
And a doily with a cup of tea
Solace always would provide.
(For the record, I couldn't find a Spoonerism today.)
The first and simplest hint that occurs to me with this Jumble is a variation of an old folk saying.
It comes from the Russian: Если кошка грустная, играют мыши
And the translation runs,
"When the cat is sad, the mice play."
~ OMK
For Owen ~
Nancy may not be fancy,
But an RN's not chancy.
When your family gets sick
She knows every trick.
Her knowledge ain't scant,
An expert--your aunt!
You're lucky to have her,
To keep you all a-purrrr...
~ OMK
As the millennials would say, #4 was "sick". A Redsox color guy, Dennis Eckersley, used that expression for a particularly nasty curve ball .
Perhaps the gentleman's invitation to son amie to go out on the glacier was
"Any ice today, lady; Any ice today lady?"
"How about..."
A refrain from the 30s. Not only RRATED* but decidedly unpc in today's climate.
Then again what from the past isn't unpc.
WC
Oh, FLN. Originally, I guessed "SINE" as the trig function but I'm so rusty that I needed the joke annotated. Is the Sine of the hypotenuse 2(two)?
And my Latin is non-existent having only done French in HS. Btw, which is correct for the historian Tacitus? Tack-eye-tus or Tass-IT-us? An interesting read especially in these over politicized times.
*From one of this week's CC's. Since I get the week in advance I solve ahead. Btw, I just did Saturday. Shutting up is difficult.
Aunt Bessie had known Reginald as a very young child
And here he was back from soldiering in the wild
Unhealthy from ague and nausea she gave him nurses care
The problem was unkemptness, he'd sprawl about everywhere.
Plus spillage from the ice filled glasses he drank every day
Doilies were de rigueur along with the ubiquitous ashtray
But worst of all was the oily pomade on this handsome Hussah
"For every chair in the house I needed to lay an antimacassar"
WC
Wow, three poems in one day! What an entertaining blog.
Did the jumble late last night and found it interesting but not difficult. I wondered how those words would go together coherently in a poem, but shades of my early days at home with a solicitous mother, they did! Did any of you all get hot buttered toast in bed?
This sweet Jumble was a delight and a blessing--got all four words and the solution quickly and with pleasure, and looked forward to all the word play coming up on the blog.
How great to encounter Owen's
Gift of a charming poem.
Then a treat from Ol'Man Keith,
He too should get a wreath.
And the complex rhyme from Wilbur
Deserves a medal in silver.
And what could be more dandy
Than a tribute from our kind Sandy.
So my thanks I send your way
For giving me such a nice day.
Well, here's a
Woo!
- and a -
Hoo!
too!!
One poem after the next,
Capped by Misty's fine text.
Look what we've got!
I'm feeling giddy,
And I kiddy
You not!
~ OMK
Wilbur ~
I didn't study Latin either.
I went directly to Greek as an undergrad.
It was not a smart step, as most of the grammatical illustrations in our Greek text were offered in Latin.
Unlike Shakespeare, I had small Greek and less Latin.
But I will vote for the first pronunciation, but w/o the long "eye" sound.
"Tack-ee-toos" is my version of the guy.
(I am not sure that voting is the way to settle this, though. Democracy wasn't that big in ancient times.)
~ OMK
Actually, a "c" followed by "e", or "i" is generally a soft sound, hence "TASS-ih- tuss". Checked several pronunciation sites to verify that it's not an exception to that rule.
I bow to Sandy's in-depth research.
Flipping a bird to our local priest, who loved a "k" sound wherever he could stick it.
~ OMK
When I looked up DOILY I was referred to antimacassar. Apparently the oily pomades were messing up the furniture so fancy anti macassars were created. Macassar being the pomade itself.
WC
Language is so interesting, isn't it? Etymology is always fascinating, but, in connection with Tacitus, I was reminded that it's the words in the most common usage that so often violate pronunciation rules. Yes, "e" and "i" after "c" make it into a soft "s" sound, except that two of the most common English words are "give" and "get"!
Oops! Should have said -- after "c" AND "g" give THEM a soft sound -- usually!!
"Rules are made to be..." (What is it? I always forget that last word, Sandy.)
Anyway, language is one of the great dis-respecter of rules.
Take the name "Keith," for instance.
It breaks every rule about English usage of "i" and "e" in the grammar book.
~ OMK
I guess you're right, Ol'Man Keith.
I can only come up with heath, be-neath, be-queath, wreath--hey, I'm tired and will have to see if I can come up with more tomorrow.
And in Old English "kith"--as in "Kith and Kin"--is pronounced exactly the same.
~ OMK
Two of my distressing fails on Saturday xwords involved the i vs e spelling. One was STEIN which I spelled Stien. And then a river in Russia, the Dnieper for which I went the other way.
Also by the way, I see I also misspelled "Hussar". There's no ending h, but, LIU, the Brits did have Hussar cavalry complete with fancy dress and accompanying moustache.
The latter well oiled.
WC
My problem being my Boston upbringing. I naturally never pronounced the R in Hussar and then went and spelled it the way I pronounced it to rhyme with words like Hahvahd and Yahd.
That lack of a pronounced "r" ending also occurs in several Southern dialects, including the elegant Tidewater Virginia speech.
My last name is Fowler, and this led to some confusion when I began my time as head of the theater arts division of the Virginia Museum.
I kept receiving phone calls telling me that "two dozen steaks" were waiting at the rear entrance, or my order for "fifteen pheasants" was being confirmed.
Turned out the head chef of the museum's rather tony restaurant was the former chef to Haile Selassie--a gentleman named Fala, Ernst Fala.
Many Virginians pronounce Fowler & Fala exactly alike.
~ OMK
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