Ursula Dubosarsky's Blog

Spring, Summer, Autumn (Fall?), Winter. Click on the link and read all about it!

Winner of French Scrabble does not speak French!

Read the article in link above and you will see that it may be that it is the MATHS spies, not the WORD spies, who will be best at Scrabble!

Hello Word Snoop. 

This is Betty Autumn's mom from Vermont, USA. We stumbled into some serious word snooping today at a museum of life in New England in the 1800's (The Shelburne Museum). 

A favorite building is the working blacksmith shop, complete with the grubby blacksmith, his bellows, tools, and wooden bucket of water in which to dunk the red-hot metal to cool. I asked him, "In carpentry, there is a popular saying, 'Measure twice, cut once.' is there any parallel sayings in the blacksmith shop? "Yes," he said, "There are lots: Strike while the iron's hot. Don't have too many irons in the fire, and Pound the daylights out of it." 

That last one was my favorite. It refers to using a tool called a mandrel to round out a metal ring. To know where to strike to get it perfectly round, you "Pound the daylights out of it." In other words, you pound wherever you can see between the ring and the tool. So fun. 

From Betty Autumn's mom

Dear Betty Autumn's mom,

What a wonderful post! thank you so much.  All fascinating - and a I learned a new word, "mandrel". Here is a photo of one, snoops and spies. (The thing in the middle).


 

I became so interested I started snooping around and found this site, with proverbs from blacksmiths.  One I really like is  "Blacksmith's children are not afraid of sparks". And what a marvelous museum that looks - watch out for it, spies and snoops, if you are ever in New England, USA. 

Always a delight to be in touch, keep banging that anvil! 

your pal, The Word Snoop (aka The Word Spy)

Dear Spies,

Be careful with your commas or you might end out in court, as you will read in the link here. 

Beef with Coles over missing comma

Which I'm sure brings to mind to my fellow word spies the famous words of the Irish playwright, novelist and poet, Oscar Wilde!




And as for apostrophes...

Yours,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
(nervously)

The, 'Word, Spy'

Dear Spies,

If you've read "The Return of the Word Spy", you will have read all about the invented language Esperanto. Well, did you know there is even a museum of Esperanto in Vienna, Austria?

Vidi vin tie! Via amiko, La Vorto Spiono

https://www.onb.ac.at/en/museums/espe...

Dear  Spies,

Just so you know it's not only children who have to learn to improve their handwriting! (And between you and me, the Word Spy has got a long way to go...)

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/handwriting-101-the-easy-ways-to-improve-your-scrawl-20170630-gx21j1.html

Dear Word Spy,

I was reading a freaky fact book and found the contents page. One particular chapter I came across was the weird words. There, I finally stumbled upon my favourite word!Please don't be shocked (it is the longest word in the English language):
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
(pronounced noo-mono-ultra-micro-scopic-silico-volcano-conio-sis)
Dear Charlotte,
Well I am SHOCKED!  And if you spies are shocked too, have a look at this video to hear someone saying it:

 And wait, here's a song all about it!  Which also tells you what it actually means...


Wonderful spying, Charlotte - one might even say:

Yours, still humming, The Word Spy

Dear Spies,

I alas am too old for this (and also I don't live in the USA) - but what a truly wonderful idea. An immersion camp for high school Latin students where you actually learn to SPEAK the language,not just read it!  http://www.latinperdiem.com/tusculum17/ 


Camp activities will include:Reading and discussing in Latin a wide variety of authors from all eras of the languageSharing meals, games, athletics, and campfires all in LatinRecitations, competitions, dramatic interpretations, and lots of hilarity in LatinThe formation of abiding, literary friendships with other young people your own age who are learning Latin and loving the humanities
Sigh. O quam felices sunt illos iuvenes!!!  (Visne mihi dare salem?)

yours, jealously, 

Explorator Verborum

Dear Spies,

You have to hand it to these students of Koine Greek (Greek that was spoken from about 300 BC -300 AD) - they will do anything to learn their verbs! Singing, dancing, climbing trees, making shapes of letters with their bodies - you have to see it to believe it.

Dear me!  I think this might be an avian word spy....

British parro t missing for four years returns speaking Spanish British owner reunited with lost bird only to find he doesn't speak English any more