Cameron  wants to drop his bombs,drop his bombs
Cameron wants to drop his bombs
Early in the morning.

Corbyn thinks it is no good,is no good
Corbyn thinks that is no good.
Gates of hell are yawning.

All we know is what we’re told,what we’re told
All we know is what we’re told
Though a few new thoughts are dawning.

Shall we help the refugees,refugees
Shall we have more refugees
It’s Christmas in the morning.

What would what Baby Jesus say.Jesus say.
What would Baby Jesus say?
I see God’s given up talking.

Of course what we do is ok,is ok
Of course the UK is OK.
What’s that shadow stalking?

Source: From Alternative Fiction & Poetry (1987)

We can communicate via images too.

As I was sitting here reflecting on a comment Rommel had made on my post “Style” I realised that as long as  our use of language was mainly oral we would not  have been worrying about apostrophes in the  sentence.

The cat ate it’s dinner v The cat ate its dinner.

The main reason,.I have thought of ,is that when we are talking to somebody in the flesh we have a lot more information about the situation we are in.If we had a dog called “It” my husband would know that the cat might:

Eat It’s dinner.

But he would probably be happy if the cat having been ill

ate its dinner.

When we move to written communication we have many advantages like being able to know   what others  elsewhere think,share information,read books etc but we have to be careful to make sure that we get over exactly what we intend and I think this is when punctuation helps and why it is so important.Of course we can say,I mean the cat ate its own dinner…etc but sometimes people misinterpret what another person writes and don’t know that they have done that,Also I find writing poetry that it may have meanings I never noticed.

One reason that Bible reading was not allowed in the Catholic church before the Reformation is that it was thought people needed to be learned about  the time the Bible was written,about different translations etc. So the priest would expound to them upon a reading.I don’t know if they could ask questions.It seems unlikely but they could ask privately.

Many people don’t know that the Gospels were not written for many years after Jesus died so  the claim they are literally true might be misleading.The people  such as MMLJ who wrote them were in a small community where no doubt being Jews [yes!] they would discuss things at length and compare ideas and discuss what to write and how to explain  it to the larger group.When the Church grew  enormously that was hard to maintain.The split between Jews and Christians came in after the fall of Jerusalem in 70  CE when nearly all the Jews were killed by the Romans.The Rabbinical  sect and the Christian  sect were the survivors according to Karen Armstrong.They went separate ways.And  even with the Christians there had been conflicts about whether non Jews could become Christian.St Paul who wrote before the Gospels were written believed that non Jews were permitted to join but not everyone agreed,which led to a conflict between Jews who became Christians and Gentile Christians…. which led perhaps to the persecution of the Jews down the ages.

What we call the Old Testament is a selective rewriting of the Hebrew Bible which  has an even more complex history.Many of the stories are metaphorical as indeed they are in the New Testament.And many are now misunderstood like  ” an eye for an eye”

When we get the News now it’s not usually oral [I exclude TV as it is  not mutual].We get it in writing in the newspaper or on the screen here   and that is already an interpretation based on a  selective  choice from all that is happening..Again journalists need to know style,grammar and punctuation to make their writing transparent.Of the tabloid press, we might wish otherwise!We might choose to read other newspapers in other countries but time is a problem

If you disagree with me you can comment or ask me to clarify but if you disagree with BBC News or The Times it takes longer and may not have any effect.

I conclude that as humans move away from talking face to face it is harder to understand just what they mean when they use language..Talking together,we need no semi colons.As we moved into  using widespread written communication, we then needed ways to make clear our meaning but  in the end it is talking  between people which is primary and we need no lessons in grammar for that.I am surprise how no-one mentions how amazing it is that babies learn to talk without having lessons [but reading is harder for most children]

.Of course talking face to face has its own problems especially relating to power imbalances.And I have seen many articles about how we rarely listen properly and attentively to the person.Cultural differences also matter.I have taught many Muslim students and also interacted on-line and I find the men more courteous than   many  men from my  culture.It’s almost as if men here think,OK you want to be equal,we’ll hit you like we would a man or we’ll swear and curse in front of you or at you.Alas,many people don’t even know they are cursing and swearing as it is so common in soap operas.Why  even Alfred,my part time cat sometimes gives me a dirty look and a loud whine and might say something rude if he could talk in English.Thank God,he can’t

http://home.btconnect.com/ros.flemming/index.htm

If you love flowers and plants and want to see what is available or just like looking at good photographs then visit Ros’s other website above

Dark in the morning,the windows are grey.

Dark in my heart,where nothing can stay.

Dark in the evening,dark in the night.

Only  the cat’s eyes give me some light.

Knocked off the glove box down in  the hall

Knocked over the bin,found nothing at all.

Knocked down  your photograph  and stood on the glass.

Like me he’s reached the last impasse.

Waiting for what,as we sit here alone?

Waiting for nobody,heart like a stone.

Waiting  on God sounds rather strange.

Let’s say that grace cannot be pre-arranged.

Dark again,dark,where you fell into earth.

Darker and darker  like the devil’s own curse

Darkness  around me,darkness inside.

Washed all up on the evening tide.

Goodbye our future,fiction in fact.

Goodbye,did you say it with your special tact?

Goodbye,you never said it,you never addressed

The one who  was with you,but never caressed.

Is it impossible to run it again?

Is it a fancy that  can but remain?

Life’s just a film and we are the stars…

But when the reel stops,we fall so far.

Flying away,I saw the hand stuck,

Turning the reel to make this world work.

Flying away, I’ll never come home.

Flying and turning and ever alone.

The Economist Style Guide: 11th edition

The Economist

 

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

Steven Pinker

Never end a sentence with and.

And never begin one with and either.

Like trying to reduce mathematics to a mere branch of logic as Russell and Whitehead did [didn’t  succeed,in fact],trying to write the rules of English grammar is  difficult

The main reason is that there are no rules.Let me explain.English was spoken for many hundreds of years before it was written down.Or,let’s say all language was originally oral.Eventually some bright person invented an alphabet.This was in the Middle East.Hebrew still uses an alphabet which pre-dates the Greek.Aleph is the first letter.We use it in mathematics to denote infinity as we ran out of Greek  letters and maybe French too.

When I say there are no rules I mean that the language existed for a long time before the development of alphabets and writing.Gradually  language developed and later written language but always there has been change and growth.And who makes the rules? The elite?

So to some extent there is no ultimate form.I  imagine that great writers like Shakespeare add to or influence the language they write in.And other people decide that some forms are better than others.It may be aesthetic;in maths it must be clear;in novels, perhaps dramatic.

Similarly punctuation arrived  only after writing developed.When  you learned to talk you could speak well by the time you went to school but an inverted comma was probably a new notion.We need  such things, sometimes ,to clarify what we mean.But language is still primarily used between people and it is a living being at its best.

Some people mock those who write,

that cat ate it’s dinner.

But  that is related  just to  what is customary:

the cat ate its dinner …. means its own dinner

“The cat ate it’s dinner” means another being called “it”  had its dinner eaten by the cat.Alas.

But usually the context tells us.

“I have lost my head” might confuse some of us.It’s most often a dead metaphor.

I lost my head and told my husband I regretted ever meeting him.But my head was screwed on the right way later.

She lost her head and swore  at the Rabbi who gamely swore back  to keep their friendship alive except it was all in his head.She didn’t even know he was a Rabbi, but believed he was  a soft toy with a missing tee.That’s life.For some.

http://www.botanicdesign.co.uk/

Absquatulate has plenty of rhymes

But the word itself is a  real crime.

To combine two words gentle

May at last send me mental.

Maybe it is just not my time.

I know my old man flew  to heaven.

Whereas I’d have preferred a holiday in Devon.

But with my permission

He made a decision.

As a result all my bread is unleavened.

That is what happened to the Jews

As around the Sinai they  once cruised.

They ran out of yeast;

That was the least

Of the problems, like ironing their trews.

See,there was no electrical wiring.

With no walls on the tents, they’d be firing.

So  as the halogen hobs

All worshipped G-d,

The men  slept as the heat was real tiring.

How did they cook cheesecakes and  rice?

Did they have a  special device?

Leave it to Adam

And his lady madam..

They could  rue it and do it all twice

I am glad I was not  alive in those days

Unless I’m reincarnated,give praise!

Perhaps I was   a cat

Ariel ‘s habitat.

Oh,woman how discrete are thy days

My husband was very sardonic.

He liked to play deadly ironic.

So when his pulse stopped

The penny then dropped

This time he was dead and platonic.

A platonic friend may  suit the bright

Who never learned to turn off the light.

In the dark it is easier

To suck on maltesers

While  making love as the cats waul and shrike

I feel surprised it is already  six months since His Majesty departed.In my latest dream he has ordered me to get a lodger… he must think I am in need of money!Why can’t God just arrange for me to meet a kind man with a  car as I can’t drive now; who is interested in
Wittgenstein,art,poetry  or just cooking and good conversation… or just telling me why Labour want to bomb Syria and suchlike issues.

If I get lodgers I shall only have women.Then they can tidy me up and do my hair or buy me a wig.

After Tom kissed her,Mary absquatulated  to Italy .She always did prefer buttered Roman cakes to men

I was having problems and discovered it was because

“accept third party cookies”

was disabled in Settings.I didn’t recall doing that but once I changed it everything went back to normal.

I had even reinstalled Chrome before that to no effect.

When I was writing just now a memory of my teacher in the top class in junior school came to me.He was a very nice man and wise.He never said anything about me being ahead of the other pupils and never made me feel different for which I am grateful.I remember one day he asked us for a word to describe a rubber,I put ip my hand and said,pliant.

Very good,he said.I was thinking of flexible but pliant might be even better.He made me feel happy.

.I still remember because  in the grammar school the nuns were on the whole unkind to me.I don’t know if they thought I must be conceited but I never was… to the contrary.And if I did stand out,my gifts were given to me,though I did work hard… as in those days there was not much entertainment available… and I liked writing essays and solving problems.

I had a sudden episode of optimistic kleptomania

I collected jokes and cigar butts and sent them to Australia.

The Customs Office  phoned me to ask what I was playing at

I said I only sent them to create a brand new habitat.

These episodes annoy me as I’m usually tautological

I  believe  using my credit cards is  simply  pathological.

Instead I make them into unique little table mats

But now I’ve reached my limit with a thousand plastic cards and men

And so I’m going overseas  to study Buddhism along with Zen.

I dreamed I rowed in a large pea green boat
Accompanied by seventeen cats.
And across the Great Lake,without a mistake
I saw mountains of gentleman’s hats.
I was making no waves in my effort to move,
The cats were discoursing on geometry.
I looked in the mirror fixed onto my boat,
The moon spoke  entrancing Theology.
“I wonder who’ll help me”I thought to myself,
When I saw an entire spectrum of men–
Dirac, Archimedes,Niels Bohr, with their theories.
I got my great inspiration just then.
I need seventeen physicists,that’s one for each cat,
All tied to my boat with a chain.
The force they exert will just compensate
For the magnetic attraction of rain.
Paul Dirac came up, and I looked into his eyes,
They were full of anxiety and pain.
“I am sorry I am unable do what you wish,
But my father never taught me to swim.”
“That is perfectly alright”,I politely replied,
“You can walk on the water instead”
So that’s how my boat and its cargo of cats
Were accompanied back to my bed.
When I awoke the next day,I was filled with dismay.
I saw that Paul Dirac was gone,
With the cats and the boat,of which I just wrote
And I was now completely alone.
I took a quick look,in my old physics book
And there was a photo of Dirac
I stared at his eyes,and I am not telling lies,
He threw me a very strange look.
I caught this strange look,it’s here in my book.
I am saving it for a special event.
When I gather more Data on Relative Quanta,
I’ll understand just what Dirac meant.

The sky looks like a Turner painting.
At the high point it’s brighter,even golden cream
Like the top of a bottle of Jersey milk;
then it dims down to a bluey gray
with a slight threat in it
like a blacker gray…It’s
Too warm today for snow.

I swept brown dried leaves from the step..
Had to move my bike.
Then I hid them under the hedge
So they can keep some insects warm in the winter.
But mainly I don’t want to bend down to collect them,,
I’m tired or lazy after the weekend.
I still have a dress here I was ironing just a week or two ago.
Now it will be put away till next summer.
Here’s a denim jacket with flowers all over…
I did wear it but it won’t look right now.

I washed my hair.It feels soft and pleasant.
I like that feeling.I am wondering what you are doing.
Are you listening to music or resting?
Or sitting looking down the road at wet fields?
I think I’ll make some tea.
I need a focus for the day which also has a feeling
  Like those late watercolors
Everything merging
Until one thing dissolves into an other.
Some people like it but today
I need some edge,some definition.
I need someone to give me boundaries.
Time 4 pm
Kettle boils and a neighbor’s cat peers by the locked cat flap…
Wondering why she can’t get in.
I turn away.

Now the sky is without any gold
It’s fifty shades of gray.
It’s clouded dark and soft
Like your hair might have been
But I could never have touched it…
You were always too far away and moving.....

North Yorkshire

Mary was sitting at her table reading a piece in the Guardian Family section When she had finished the sad interview with a woman whose son had shot dead 5 children in a school,she tried to get up but the decorative buttons on her shoes had become entangled and her feet were tied together..

What shall I do ? she asked herself nervously.Very soon the answer came.. to slip her shoes off and then pick the linked pair up.How stupid it is,she told herself,to make crossing one’s ankles so dangerous.But with her brilliant yet anxious mind she had solved the problem and not died at her laptop.Perhaps in that case nobody would have realised  her shoes had caused her death implemented by her stupidity at not recalling she could take them off!

She went into the kitchen where Emile had knocked over the pedal bin to get a piece of chicken left over from dinner.He had also got a large ball of rough twine and knocked it round the room creating a big tangled mess.

Just wait till Stan comes back,she told the wicked cat.You know quite well the bin is out of bounds.Look at the floor!The doctor will  blame me for this mess.

How will the doctor know? asked Emile politely.

Well,it’s just he seems to be around quite a lot nowadays.I think he liked my Earl Grey Tea.Or else he is anxious about me.He thinks I am too thin…

Is he planning to hug you,asked the little black cat.

Oh,no.He can’t do that.I believe it is forbidden  by the Zippocratic Code even though my blood pressure falls if he holds my hand.

I’d have thought it might rise,mewed the naughty animal.

Now then ,Emile.I am beyond caring about men.Or women.I have no desire for desire if you understand me.

I don’t understand ,cried Emile, because cats  never lose their desire!

Well,one thing I know for sure,I am not a cat,Mary informed him .I am  human being.

Well,may I sit on your lap said the cat.

Mary sat by the window watching the trees sway against the grey mauve sky.Emile rubbed against her bosom as if expecting milk to flow.

Stop that Emile. she shouted.I am getting aroused.And you are no use to me in that way.You are getting beyond the boundary of taste.

Maybe it’s good for your circulation,the cheeky animal whispered.Anyway I am stuck.Your necklace has hooked onto my collar.

Oh,my Lord  said Mary.Don’t say you will be hanging round my neck forever.What shall we do now?

There are a few possible answers,Emile said.

1.Take off your necklace

What and leave you dragging it round the garden.I’ll have you  know it cost 15 and six,Mary said mournfully

Was that before decimalisation or is it some other mathematical model? Emile said noisily.

2.Undo my collar and take it off me then we can try to separate them.

3.We could lie on the bed and gaze into each others eyes all day,he finished.Unless you need the bathroom .I am happy

Well, charming thought that sounds I am  not willing,Mary shouted foolishly.She tore off the necklace and by some miracle it came away from the collar and freed Emile who was not totally happy at this quick release

So you are not in love with me,he yelped like a small  but jealous god.

Well,I do love you,sweetheart,But I am not expecting marriage.In any case  you would have to be transgender first and I don’t recommend it

How about trans-species ? he murmured seductively.

Even the most demanding folk in Britain have not yet requested to be made into cats,she told him half consciously.

Emile began to cry softly

Whatever’s wrong,dearest,she asked him mindfully.

I was hoping you could become a cat like me,Emile said in his Cockney accent which had picked up from the TV.

That is very sweet,dear but how would we pay the Council Tax and get books from the Library?

We would go to the old greenwood and live the life of freedom,he said.

Well,you are used to it,said Mary,but I like to think about Wittgenstein.I wonder if he’d like to be a cat if he were not dead.Would Sylvia Plath have been happier as a cat? We shall never know.But it could have helped her a great deal if Ted were just a randy tom.

Thus Mary , lounging in her red chair fell  fast asleep  in her   warm blue woolly dress with Emile on the dining table beside her eating some Wensleydale cheese she had forgotten to put away.

Mm very nice Emile mewed.I hope  the people in Wensleydale have made some more.

And so say all of us.

For it’s a jolly good seller.

So say all  of us.