Great excitement ( by local standards ) over the resignation of Scotlands First Minister. The BBC news broadcast refers to the small pro-independence Alba Party ( which has played a walk on part in his downfall ) as the Al-a-buh Party. This unusual three syllable pronunciation has got agitated retirees up and down the country firing off e-mails of complaint. This morning we discover that the BBC is right. Some Celtic languages feature what is known as an epenthetic vowel which is the insertion of a vowel between two consonants in speech when it is not written. That's how the Irish name Colm is pronounced Collum, why the Scots say 'fillum' for film and why you pronounce Alba as Al-a-buh.
On the beach hundreds, possibly thousands of these things littering the sand. We have no idea what they are but think they're either a variety of seaweed or exoskeletons for some sort of mollusc.
The exodus from town has picked up. Far fewer students to be seen. By this time next week 10,000 will have gone leaving the 16,000 townsfolk to wonder what's happened. On one of the small streets we have to detour round a bright yellow sofa that's going into storage. Brown cardboard boxes are stacked up outside front doors.
The storage vans now a feature of the townscape. In our day such things didn't exist. At the end of every every term ( as they were in pre-semester days ) you packed up your things and went home. One learnt to travel 'minimally'. Looking back I'm reminded this was a skill set 'The Font' never acquired.
It is now seagull mating season. As we drink our morning espressos we can count no less than twelve of them doing ungodly things on the roof of the church. Mating seagulls are not noted for their reserve.
Bemusing sight of the day . A car with a lock on the door. Why ?
9 comments:
My guess is that it's a way of two people sharing one car key. Unlock the lockbox, extract the key and off you go. In my student days we tended to hand the furniture on to the next tenants. Easier than pacing them and dragging them home.
The strange spiral objects on the beach are sharks' eggs.
I don't really care how Alba is pronounced so long as they don't come anywhere close to power. Alex Salmond was doing a media round sounding like all his Christmases had come at once yesterday...
Cheers, Gail.
If there are hundreds of those shark's eggs on the beach, does that mean they will hatch out and you'll be over-run with baby sharks? Knowing nothing about how sharks breed, I would assume that the next tide will carry them out to sea? I will ask Mr Google.
Once again your blog has opened new doors onto the world for me. This morning it's epenthetic vowels and sharks' eggs.
Thank. You for explaining epenthic vowels. Years ago on vacation in England, Dad and I stayed at a rural B&B.
I can’t remember the exact location but the owner was bringing in wood for a fire and kept talking about how the ellums had to all be cut down due to disease. It took a bit of a think for Dad and I to realize the man meant elms.
I've never seen a shark's egg. Very interesting, indeed. Also, glad you're not living in town this summer. Hoping you have some quiet from baby seagulls!
I had to look up epethentic too. And now I'm wondering Angus if epethentic is a word known to you or if you had to cheat with the help of BBC like we did with Google.
Oops. Epenthetic.
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