New Evidence on Use of Pop

Okay, I know I said I’d leave “pop” alone and move on to other examples of English abusage, but . . .

I was “popped” twice in HSBC today, as: 

“You’ve popped the amount in the wrong box . . .” and “after altering, just pop your initials next to it.”  Added to the minimum of six at Specsavers last week: “Pop your lenses out”; “pop your coat on there”; “pop yourself into the chair” and then “pop your lenses back in” (the four I remember) I seem to be encountering a lot more unnecessary popping.  

This is not the reason I am returning to the example.  I am back here because I think I have worked out why. 

In almost every example noted, “pop” was part of an instruction and its use took the edge off each command.  “Sit down”, “put your coat on there”; “take out your lenses” all sound peremptory, may not be to a customer’s liking and could lead to sarcastic responses such as “pretty please” or similar.  

“Pop” is a politeness.  It soothes, eases and avoids the causing of offence or tension in encounters between product/service providers and customers.

That is all well and good, but what on earth is wrong with a simple “please”?

I suggest that the rise of “pop” has taken place at the expense of “please”, one of the two words I was brought up to use more than any other.  For those who don’t know, the second – almost always used soon after “please” – was “thank you”.

Now I have a theory to test, I am encouraged to apply for a research grant.  

At last, a proper, measurable goal.   

          

Chicken Soup for the Wallet

The title is a nod in the direction of Canfield and Hansen, but the style is different.

You can’t beat leftovers in my opinion.  Re-heating food adds an extra something to the fresh-cooked experience and although food doesn’t all react well to repeat cookings, my life would be emptier without it.

For example.

Take a small, pre-used chicken carcase and strip off all the meat.  In doing this, there is no substitute for a clean pair of hands since getting the delicious little mouthfuls from those two hollows in the lower back and the recessed parts of the keel requires a deft thumb.   

Put the good meat (chunks and strips) into a bowl for, say, a pasta sauce or a decent sandwich.  Drop the scratty bits and scrapings into another bowl.  Boil carcase in three pints of water to which a good quality vegetable stock cube is added.  “Good quality” can be determined from the ingredients list.  Only go for those containing food items, not the products of laboratories. 

Three hours later, strain bones and other debris from the stock.  Pick over the bits for extra shreds of meat that have dropped off and add to the pickens bowl.  Discard the bones, cartilage, skin, etc. unless you have access to a wormery.

Let the stock cool and, if desired, skim off excess fat.   

Add leftover roast potatoes and parsnips and a quarter of a chopped cabbage.  Include the hard bits from the cabbage core, since these cook down nicely. 

Macerate using a hand blender or liquidiser, but don’t make it too smooth.  Add half a pint of leftover white sauce.  Season.  Simmer for ten minutes.

Add two handfuls of sweetcorn and the chicken pickens.  Simmer for ten minutes.  Check seasoning.  (It will need more salt.  Everything always does)

Serve with Swiss Fitness Loaf, fresh from the bread maker courtesy of a Betty’s

recipe.

I got nine servings of delicious soup from a recipe including only two bought items: a stock cube and a few leaves and core of cabbage, since leftovers don’t count for budgetary purposes.  

Cost for nine portions = ninety pence.

Cost per person = ten pence.

Okay, I’ll add a quid for the bread ingredients making dinner per person a shade over twenty pence.  All the necessary food groups are present including (possibly, if you use enough veg.) three of the
five-a-day insisted on by the Food Fascisti.

Beat that, ye frugal cooks out there. 

Comment from Star Teacher: "Too much salt.  Must try harder."

Straw Bear

Should be here, but isn't yet.

DIM: Another New Word

“DIM”.  = Do (or Doing, Done, Damaging and/or Destroying) It Myself.

Okay it’s an acronym, but still counts as word generation.  

“DIM” is my own version of “DIY” and its derivatives.  A similar but different term for a common and popular set of activities, describing to others how much my efforts differ from those with a normal level of practical skill and competency.

I must be careful not to slip into self-parody and turn self-deprecation into an art form.  Nor do I seek sympathy – although my family need it at times – since I am still smiling.

Why now, you may ask?
 
Well, I had a day of DIM on Monday and thought I had done so well.  I took ages, but removed and re-fitted a couple of kitchen cupboards and worktops. This involved drilling the right number of holes, so everything could be screwed in place to be secure and reasonably level.

Then I went to start making parsnip soup and found the cooker was dead.  I looked at my screw holes.  Several tracked vertically down from from beneath the cooker supply socket, pretty much along the line I would follow if I was an electric cable buried in plaster.  

I then remembered one particular hole where there was a bit more resistance to the drill than I expected.  I could have pulled the drill out, chipped out the surrounding plaster and exposed the metal cable duct with its minor surface damage, but I didn't.  Instead I leaned harder on the drill and through it went.     

John Spark got me out of trouble again, with an evening visit to confirm my diagnosis.    

It helped a great deal that the repairs needed after Monday's Kitchen Drilling Incident were inexpensive and minimal in terms of mess.  Of my ten randomly placed holes in the walls, only one had struck a wire. Just.  A whisker to the left and I would have been safe and my ignorance would have continued. 

Instead, I see this incident as a positive one.  I have learned something (blindingly obvious, it has to be said) and view the time spent on repeating the work I did on Monday not as wasted, but invested. 

In addition, I have supported two small businesses (John's and the electrical suppliers) and given Stella another story to tell after the camera-in-the-toilet one has run its course. 

Hypocrite!

Inadvertently, without a trace of irony and not noticing the gaffe until it was pointed out to me, guess what I did?

I popped! 

Yes, the self-styled champion of abused words has joined the abusers. 

It happened like this (and I am paraphrasing, my friends of Nidderdale Writers' Group).

Stephen Bookfair:

“A lot of people don’t realise just how good the sunrise can be when viewed from Scarborough seafront.” 

Morris Smartarse:

“If you pop down to Hunstanton the same day, you can watch the sun set over the sea without leaving the east coast.”

Lesley Sharpears:

“Paul, you popped!”

Ouch!

Sorry.  No more on this subject from me.

Peer Review

Ester’s blog was slaughtered at writing group this morning, and fairly so. 

I may never find the voice of an 11-year-old girl and probably won't be able to find one to translate my words into Year Six-speak. 

Perhaps I'll try to be a boy, since I have the experience and can remember a lot of that year in my life.  

Or should I be a grown-up?  Now THAT is a hell of a question!     

Straw Bear minus 3

I found the airbeds in a box in the garage, relieved to see I had left the bungs in since the last use of them on Cricket and Prats’ third dance tour of the Cevennes in May 2009. 

The first use – camping at 2008’s Evesham Festival – I forgot the bungs and thus learned a useful lesson: DO NOT store airbeds and bungs separately.  

My sleeping bag and under/over quilts are piled on the air beds in the back bedroom, where I am gathering the necessities for my first proper bit of morris travelling since starting this so-far misnamed blog. 

I am not yet packed, but have started. We morris travelling writers must be prepared and next weekend will be my first experience of “indoor camping”, in a Whittlesey school classroom.

In theory, indoor camping is preferable to outdoor because a building has many advantages over a tent: roof, walls, non-organic floor surface, lockable doors and windows leap to mind; followed by security from roaming psychopaths, electric light, plumbing, etc.  In addition, a few microns of tent material keep out very little sound and tents can be nearer to one another on a field than the scattered bagged-up shapes on an indoor camping floor . . .

BUT 

In practice the arrangement is a bit too communal for me, used to a maximum room occupancy of two since my children were very young.  There is also the real possibility of sharing a room with other dance sides, necessitating grouping by tribe. 

A no-man’s-land of separation will result, with a corresponding drawing together of the individuals in each group and a reluctance to sleep on the exposed outside.  Emperor Penguin style. 

Who will control the light switch? 

Which group will be the keeper of the door? 

How many snorers, sleepwalkers and teeth-grinders?  

Who will be block leader?

So many dynamics.         

Perhaps I’m over-thinking this a bit.    

My First New Word

I suppose I must start with a word of negative connotations, since I am in Diogenes mode today. 

Corruptocracy:

The bankers, industrialists, media moguls, religious leaders and plutocrats who rule us all.

Individuals are Corruptocrats.

Note: Not all of the above are corrupt and I couldn’t possibly give examples.

A Little Bit more on Use and Misuse

We all know that languages evolve by two-way trafficking of words which are borrowed, stolen, forced on people and invented. Meanings and contexts alter over time, but none of us has to agree with any of them and we are all free to adopt a little bit of anarchy as part of our linguistic ownership.

Thus do dialects, amalgams (like pidgin) and secret languages (such as Cockney rhyming slang) develop, adding to the richness of the brew.

As I posted earlier, I am now leaving “pop” alone but will concentrate on other words that fall short of my usage standards.  Two contenders – which have become less frequent recently, at odds with how these things usually work (think of synchonicity and the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon) – are “decimate” and “fayre”.

Named examples will follow as I notice them.

To balance my linguistic intolerances – which is a personal thing, which is the point of blogging, really, since these pages will not be assessed, critiqued or marked in any way – I am showing flexibility and radical thinking by introducing words of my own. 

Example to follow.

Verbal Mischief

Yes, I’m sure it was as obvious as it was deliberate, but I mis-used “popping” in one of yesterday's posts. 

Variations on “pop” seem to be popular.  The foregoing is not a pun, since the phrase was deliberate.  (I have my own word definitions to supplement those of the OED.  Language evolves, after all, but must do this properly).

I have received complaints from some readers at my objections to “pop”, since they find it indispensible.  Several are using it deliberately in my company where before they may have hesitated, so I think I’ll leave pop alone now.

The point has been made and it is time for me to move on.

Good News for Commenters

I have done something in "Settings" to allow any reader to comment without the need to pre-register or otherwise sell a small portion of their soul to Google.

Commenting should now be a cinch.  If the need to complete the anti-spam device of typing in illegible numbers and letters proves tiresome, please let me know and I'll disable that too.

Just because I can.     

When did anyone last see or hear the word "cinch"?

Apart from the above, I don't think I've used it since about 1964.

A Musing on Tolerance

I am not going to be a grumpy old or young man, woman or git . . .   

BUT

I can’t abide the television and radio shows based on cliché intolerances given voice by guested celebrities: fat people on aeroplanes, young children anywhere, queues of any description, white van drivers are examples; even when I find myself nodding and agreeing as I hurry to staunch my leaking hypocrisy by switching channels. 

These shows are, like the redtops, reporting the national zeitgeist and the fault is collective.  They are popular for that reason – they are, after all, simply a distorted echo – and for being cheap to produce and purchase.  My vicarious embarrassment and resulting discomfort on hearing or reading any of that sub-genre (details TBC) stem from fellow feelings I cannot suppress. 

These feelings are embedded.  Visceral.  Sub-conscious.  I make amends by turning up my internal tolerance control (early results of my research indicate that this is a pituitary gland function.  Wouldn’t you just guess that?) Thus I release a flood of benign thoughts whilst grinning as widely as the Joker. 

This form of psychological quantitative easing works for a while, then an unbidden thought surfaces: Why don’t people say what REALLY pisses them off?  Like the taboos I can’t even hint at here.  The taboos everybody knows – even if they don’t agree – but which are so taboo that only the elderly or radio phone-in members of Bigots R Us are permitted to voice them. 

The conspiracy theorist in me says that we are encouraged to take cheap shots and complain about minor matters in order to distract us from the big issues of organised religion, a usurious banking system, poor government, manipulative media and the all-controlling corruptocracy dating back to the Normans.   

Goodness!  I do take on so, don’t I? *winks*

Despite the above statement of intent (before I got a little carried away) and the recent withdrawal of my SAD award system, I now insert a large BUT . . .,

. . . I shall continue to grumble about specific instances and events affecting me and those I know.  If only when the fickle Muses leave me no choice and I feel the need to scribble something.  

One recent example:

At 8.20 p.m. yesterday I received a phone call from somebody asking for Paul.  Use of my first name out of normal working hours implied that the caller was a friend, or at least an acquaintance, with whom I might wish to talk. 

Wrong on both counts.

The caller introduced himself as “Swinton Insurance” then launched into his pitch about an insurance policy that would be of benefit to me . . . at which point I said I wasn’t interested.

Now that was rude of me and I hate being rude since it makes me feel churlish and even when warranted by a pushy sales type or chugger I feel lessened by each occasion.  If my evening caller had asked why or taken the smartarse option of asking me how I could not be interested in something without first knowing the details, I may have either hung up or expanded as follows:

“I am not interested in any product or service offered to me over the telephone by anybody I do not know.”

That’s it.  A simple rule that also applies when anybody calls at my door, puts something through my letter box or to whom I take a dislike if addressed in the street.  I don’t want to discuss or argue or justify or answer questions.  I don’t want to talk.  I don’t want eye contact or an exchange of smiles.  I don’t want to pass the time of day.  I especially don’t want to pay.  If I wish to obtain a product or service, I look for it.  In other words: “go away”. 

No, I am not a misanthrope, I just want to cut out the annoying bit of human interaction where somebody interrupts my life to separate me from my money at their convenience for their reasons.    

Continuing with (if not warming to) the theme, I don’t like junk mail but I can live with it.  There is a well-trodden route between letter box and recycling.  The printed material is a waste of resources, but at least I can help recycle it into usable toilet paper.

Worse are polythene charity bags, delivered at a run by volunteers with the printed plea to give what unwanted items I can for collection the following . . . Monday, for example.  I have filled these in the past, but the only result is non-collection.  It is a plastic bag disposal service.

     

Spam, phishing and other unwanted junk emails all share the same fate.  Instant deletion.  They don’t bug me like they used to once I realised that the endless emails I received from the supplier of every product I bought online – the great majority of all such emails – could be stopped by the magic of the deregistration process.           

The overseas-based criminals who phish provide more amusement than anything –

now I have stopped taking their assumption of my stupidity personally – with their combination of sheer gall and illiteracy. 

My ire is instead reserved for Google and the other ISPs who do nothing about them.  They seem to require verifiable proof that emails are illegal in nature before they will close a sender’s account.  This is not, I believe, a legal requirement but a symptom of attitude.           

Over and above all the above, I despise the unwanted phone call with an unreasonable passion even if they are in the minority by being able to pronounce my surname, get my gender right and be intelligible in English.   

Mr Swinton Insurance did not respond to my short statement.  There was a silence lasting a good ten seconds before I hung up.  A minute later I called back out of curiosity – via the precautionary measure of pre-dialling one-four-one, since I didn’t want to get his hopes up – to be answered by a female-voiced robot telling me that an unsuccessful call was recently made to me by Swinton Colonnade and I would be called again in the near future. 

The voice went on to say if I did not wish to receive any further calls I could dial the  number it then dictated.  I rang this other number, only for the same robot to tell me that all staff were busy and I should call again later.     

No voicemail option.  No email contact address.  No deregistration option via a website.  No way out, just one-way traffic. 

I like to think if a Swinton employee had interrupted my attempted communing with the Muses that evening before I took out the insurance, I would not have sought a quote.

The trouble with that stance is that since Swinton’s was the cheapest quote I found the result would have meant me paying more. 

So, on balance, I’ll take the annoying phone calls as the price of greater choice and competition and just grumble a little afterwards.  Already my mood is lightening as tolerance washes through me and a grin stretches my cheek muscles to tearing point.

        

The World's Best Ever Crunchy Roast Potatoes

1.  Take the right quantity of potatoes (floury maincrop varieties are suitable,
     including Estima and Maris Piper).

2.   Peel and cut into similar size pieces no bigger than three inches across and with as many angles as possible.  Aim to serve each person with at least eight.   

3.   Boil in unsalted water for ten minutes, drain in a colander and leave for another ten for excess water to evaporate.

4.   Place potatoes back in the pan, cover with lid, hold lid in place and shake hard.  Check every ten seconds to see if potatoes are fraying at the edges and sides.  If they remain smooth, repeat stage 3. for five minutes.  

     Notes:

Potatoes can now be left until one hour before needed.   
It is better to over-fray than under-fray.  

This stage is best carried out over a sink in the event that fumbling occurs.    

5.  Pre-heat a fan oven to 200 C. Place enough goose fat (preferably rendered from a goose roasted the previous year and kept frozen in 10 fl oz quantities until thawed overnight at room temperature) in a roasting tray and place on top shelf of oven which should by now be at the temperature of dragon breath.          

Note:

“Enough” goose fat is the quantity needed to fill a roasting tray to a depth of half an inch after melting.    
  

6.  After ten minutes the goose fat will be at the temperature of magma and the pan can be removed from the oven.  (I find it is useful to do this one-handed – I use my left – whilst shielding my face from the searing breath of the oven with the other).   

       

   7. Cascade potatoes from pan to tray. Do this in four or five stages to allow the   

       Potatoes to be turned and coated with the hot fat.  Turn again to ensure all. 
       Season with fresh-potatoes glisten if possible, leave a space between each

   ground black pepper and coarse sea salt. 

8. Return pan to oven.  Roast at 200 C for twenty minutes, take out tray, turn potatoes 
    and re-season.

Note:
Halfway through this stage, goose fat in a muffin tray or similar can be pre-heated for Yorkshire Puddings.         

9.   Return potatoes to oven, roast for another twenty minutes then check frequently to monitor potato colour.

Note:

It helps to pre-clean the glass viewing screen in the oven door to avoid the need to keep opening the door, which is certain death for Yorkshire Puddings.     

        

10. Remove potatoes and serve immediately.

Notes:

The potatoes will be so good you will wish to write about them.         

Try to cook too many, as the potatoes will keep in the fridge for up to a week, will re-heat splendidly and also can be eaten cold.

Vegetarians can use olive oil instead of goose fat.  They are used to disappointment.

Not Quite a Recipe

If not the best ever, then certainly up there in the Super League Playoff or even Champions’ League qualifying zones. 

Oh, where would we be without sporting metaphors? 

Well, I rely a lot on driving metaphors and occasionally on the military, interchanging with analogies as the occasion demands, so a better question might be:

Oh where would I be without metaphors? 

Metaphors are so much more grown-up and economical of words than similes.  My imagination suits something “being” something else, rather than a “like” or an “as” so they win every time. 

In other words shapeshifting appeals more to me than fancy dress.

There is more magic, imagination and genetics involved. 

Christmas Past

The festive season has been and gone, leaving a trail of unposted blog scribblings lying in a heap on my hard drive. 

I'll be popping a few of them up here over the next few days whilst I reorganise my thoughts and get back into the flow of writing.

In the meantime, try to spot my bit of verbal mischief.