Today’s the day…

The polls are open. How will it end? Who knows? I’m crossing fingers and eyes and toes and legs for an Obama victory, which will make it somewhat problematic driving to work, but I figure it’s worth it!

Considering all the anti-Americanism that been pretty rampant the last few years, I think Americans can take heart from the overwhelming interest in this election. The world wants Obama to win, because he represents the America I think we all want to believe in. The world wants to believe in America. The fact that so many people around the world are invested in this election is testament to the fact that underneath all the animosity and resentment there’s still a real belief and affection there for America. It’s disappointment that’s soured the relationship. You have to care in the first place before you can really hate something.

So here’s to an Obama victory and a new chapter in American history!

Excuse me whilst I sit here and cry…

I’m reading a book about the Titanic at the moment, and I just had to put it down and walk away for a moment, it’s so upsetting. I just got to the part where they’re starting to put the women and children into the lifeboats, and the descriptions of wives saying goodbye to their husbands, mothers saying goodbye to their sons, newly-weds being parted from their husbands of only a few weeks just got me crying.

I don’t know we’re all still fascinated by the story of the Titanic so much. I mean, nearly a hundred years on, and there’s still an entire publishing industry devoted to books on almost every aspect of the ship, the movie is still the biggest-selling film of all-time, it’s still bigs news when survivors of the disaster (most of whom were only babies at the time and therefore can’t remember it all – and I think there’s only one left now) die. Perhaps it’s the overwhelming tragedy of it, and the irony too. This chap says it right at the beginning of the book: “Rarely does a tale so completely combine the elements of tragedy, drama, morality play, and social statement. Few events sum up their times as decisively as the loss of the Titanic…”

It’s just so sad. All those people, betrayed to their deaths by their own society’s blinkered hubristic belief in the infalliability of man’s progress. The ‘unsinkable ship’…

It’s a beautiful day…

It was absolutely gorgeous driving to work this morning. I take the scenic route, mainly because going through town at that time would be a nightmare, and it was particularly lovely today.

The sun was shining brightly, the grass and hedges were all frosty and glistening, the mist was hanging low over the fields, the sky was a perfect mix of duck-egg blue and pale pink, and almost the whole way in I could see a hot air balloon hanging in the air, with just the occasional spurts of flame. It was a perfect autumn morning, and I can just imagine how spectacular it must have looked from that balloon – up there in the cold bright air, above the trees and the mist.

I learned a new word today…

See? Twenty-five years of life and I’m still learning. Marvellous.

‘Epicaricacy’, pronounced epicarrickasee. It means to take pleasure in someone else’s misfortune, basically the same thing as schadenfreude. I find that interesting. All this time I’ve been using and seeing schadenfreude and I never knew we had our own word for it!

Wikipedia time-wasting adventures…

It is truly astonishing how much time I have managed to waste this afternoon browsing Wikipedia’s list of English words of international origin. Truly.

For example, did you know that caravan, cummerbund, thug and shampoo are all from Hindi? Or that boondocks and cooties are from Tagalog? Or that cash, gymkhana and kiosk are from Persian? Or that gauntlet and orienteering are from Swedish? Or that alchemy, cotton and matress are from Arabic? Or that pistol and robot are from Czech? Or indeed that coach and sabre are from Hungarian?

I always find it amazing just how cosmopolitan a language English really is, when you get down to it. We have so many words from all over the world. If we don’t have a word for something we borrow it from someone else. I love that. I always loved the old quote from James D. Nicoll about the ‘purity’ of the English language:

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

Too true.

And on an entirely separate but somewhat related note, what’s your favourite word? Mine is ‘befuddled’. I just love the way it sounds, and since I feel that way a lot of the time, it seemed appropriate. Say it with me. Befuddled. Befuddled. It’s a word that makes me smile.