A Wordle in your shell-like

Today I voted for Redbubble in the Webby awards (go to Websites and then Community - RB will love you for it). While I was there, I noticed the Wordle reference, so went over to investigate. I'll say no more, except that I have had fun feeding in words, phrases, etc. Here's how this blog looks, when Wordled:


The possibilities are endless.

Word for the day

Refulgent, adj casting a flood of light; radiant; beaming

...

Just started reading "Building with Light - The International History of Architectural Photography" by Robert Elwall. It's a fine book, which includes some interesting examples of architectural photography from the very early days of the art, prior to the invention of the collodion process. While it's always interesting to see examples of work from those days, no reproduction of Daguerreotypes can do them justice. However, it is testament to the determination of those photographers using such processes, that they were prepared to expose their plates sometimes for days in order to get sufficient exposure on very slow materials.

Nowadays, just having to wait for a film to be processed, before seeing the results of your efforts, seems tedious in comparison with the immediacy of the digital process; I doff my cap to the pioneering stalwarts who had to prepare their own materials, lug around large and heavy equipment and then patiently wait for the picture to record. The nearest I have come to such endeavours (apart from long exposures of the night sky), is using a shoebox pinhole camera and slow blue-sensitive film, which required 15 minutes exposure or more. Leaving the camera unattended then left it subject to 'attack' by a comedian with too much time on his hands. I did get one half-decent result though: this image of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.

Word for the day

I was asked today what my favourite word is. Difficult; I tend not to have favourites; nor do I see much of the world in black and white, just many shades of grey. I settled on whisky – specifically malt whisky – but might need to reconsider. Other candidates would include:

• prosperity
• wife
  
• sleep
• discumknockerate

I once amused a young colleague when I used the word 'splendid', so perhaps that should be on the list.

I am fond of invented words, but care must be exercised when using them, or the audience can be left behind. Scrabble often brings the opportunity to create Welsh words, when all you have on your tile rest is 6 consonants and one vow-ell...

Being a Scot (at least, I was born there; my heritage is in the Sherwood Forest area), I am wont to use the occasional bit of dialect; not too much, because a Scots accent is bad enough in Australia, without introducing weird words as well. I once watched a bit of Looking After Jo Jo and was amazed to see subtitles being used, to help Aussie viewers understand the Edinburgh accent. Were the subtitles in English? Were they chook! They were in dialect, so made nae difference at a'. What a laugh!

Within the richness of the Scots tongue can be found such gems as:

• shoogle - shake
• tumshie - turnip
• nyaff - a useless, objectionable, tiresome person
• skelp - to smack, especially a child's backside ("I'll skelp your dowp!")

I was talking one day to a fellow Scot, in the presence of an Englishman. Jason was talking about the scooshers on his car, and I never gave the word a second thought, until Brian's face contorted in puzzlement; we had to explain that Jason was referring to the windscreen washers. Oh, the joy of secret language ;-)

So, preserve the richness of the spoken word, and use a regional word today.