Norse god has a day of his own
IN OUR piece questioning the use of the 鈥渏anitor鈥檚 apostrophe鈥� in the phrase 鈥淭ue鈥檚 night鈥� (30 April), we apparently betrayed a lamentable ignorance of Norse mythology.
鈥淭uesday is named after the god Tyr or Tiw,鈥� Stephen Ashton admonishes us. 鈥淪o Tuesday night is the night of Tiw, or Tiw鈥檚 night.鈥�
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Kevon Kenna is quick to agree: 鈥淚f Thursday is Thor鈥檚 Day, Wednesday is Woden鈥檚 Day, and Tuesday is Tiw鈥檚 Day,鈥� he asserts, 鈥渋t may well be correct to write 鈥楾ue鈥檚 Night鈥� for 鈥楾iw鈥檚 Night鈥�.鈥�
Tiw, , was a god of war in Norse mythology and was the son of Odin and Frigg. An unfortunate encounter with a wolf meant that he only had one hand.
Sorry, Tiw. We didn鈥檛 realise.
鈥淔rom the department of unhelpful information: David Bygott saw a sign at the gate of a dirt road on a ranch in Arizona which announced 鈥淯nknown Conditions Ahead鈥�
IT WAS, reputedly, the playwright George Bernard Shaw who first said that 鈥淓ngland and America are two countries separated by the same language鈥�. Unless it was Winston Churchill, or Dylan Thomas, and it was 鈥渄ivided by a common language鈥�.
And not just by language, as is shown by this intriguing extract from an article on the destructive power of water from The New York Times, reproduced in The Observer newspaper in London. 鈥淎 bathtub holds about 150 litres of water. That is 150 kilograms, filling what at first seems a modest volume of 0.08 cubic meters by 0.08 cubic meters by 0.08 cubic meters. But that weighs nearly 771 kilograms, as much as the Smart microcar.鈥� So what we have here is three-times-three dimensions. That鈥檚 a nine-dimensional bathtub, which could indeed wreak all sorts of topological havoc.
Alain Head was intrigued enough to go back to the original piece in The New York Times online, where : 鈥淎 typical bathtub holds 40 gallons or so of water. That is 330 pounds. A cubic yard of it, filling what at first glance seems a modest volume of 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet, weighs nearly 1700 pounds, as much as the Smart micro car.鈥�
Clearly, as Alain says, 鈥渢he guy who worked on the Mars Climate Orbiter has got a new job鈥�. Where The Observer got 0.08 from must remain a mystery, the measuring instrument having crashed. The newspaper has since withdrawn its assertion that 150 equals 771 () but appears to remain as mystified as we are by the nine-dimensional bath, which it has neither withdrawn nor explained.
WHEN she was searching for a tourist centre in Wales, Anne Magill encountered a different, but no less puzzling, take on transatlantic relations. Google Maps told her: 鈥淏laenavon World Heritage Centre & Tourist Information Centre, United Kingdom鈥� Did you mean: Blaenavon World Heritage Centre & Tourist Information Centre, United Kingdom near United States?鈥�
READER John Hill sends us another intriguing contribution to our theme of using words without knowing their original meaning (7 May). Emails, he points out, have a 鈥渃c鈥� and a 鈥渂cc鈥� option. How many emailers know that 鈥渃c鈥� stands for 鈥渃arbon copy鈥�? Come to that, how many are old enough to have ever used carbon paper, or even know what it is?
MEANWHILE, Anthea Fraser Gupta and Steve Wilson have separately alerted us to the delightful word 鈥渟keuomorph鈥�. This, our trusty copy of the New Oxford Dictionary of English tells us, is 鈥渁n object or feature copying the design of a similar artefact in another material鈥�.
Examples are stitching patterns on pottery bowls, based on the way leather vessels would have been stitched, or spoke patterns on hubcaps. Anthea and Steve both feel that 鈥渟keuomorph鈥� could be extended to include gestures that refer back to a meaning that is no longer relevant, such as Anita Gait鈥檚 鈥渁ir scribble鈥� when requesting the bill in a restaurant (7 May).
TALKING of which, Hugh Farey comments on the gestures used during the game of charades to indicate whether the subject is a book, a play or a film.
鈥淲hile a book is fairly sensibly indicated by a pair of opening palms, the stage is always shown as a set of tableau curtains, which open upwards and outwards, rather than straight across or straight upwards as they nearly all do now, and a film is shown as a shoulder-held, manually wound camera of a kind not seen for nearly 100 years鈥� 鈥� although, as we pointed out on 14 May, such cameras are still shown on British road signs alerting drivers to speed cameras and other enforcement measures.
Football dipped in anti-matter
FINALLY, sports commentators often excel in hyperbole. Andrew Ewart points us to live blogger on the BBC Sport website, who surely deserves a prize for this commentary on the English football programme on Sunday 1 May: 鈥淔our Premier League fixtures of such import, fascination and quality that you鈥檇 expect them gift-wrapped in gold, with diamond ribbon bows, and dipped in anti-matter under the tree on Christmas morning.鈥�