On recycling, part three - the telegram affair

Having survived the mountain trolls, I found myself faced with some more tangible trolls these last few days of my vacation: my nephews (aged two and five) and niece (4 months). Thus I spent all day yesterday and probably the entire weekend being a storyteller, encyclopedia, mattress, television facilitator, soccer judge, tantrum distractor, pony, clown and food supplier (with an infinite help from a bunch of pirates whose ship required the five-year-old to eat all his fish for the story to continue). Basically, I'm aunt > blogger today, and thus you're getting another recycled post. Over the weekend I should be back in blog mode, though (unless I need a vacation after the vacation...)

The following was originally posted on September 3, 2009. When I visited the US state archives last fall, one of the things that made my days a little brighter was when I found unintentionally comical documents, often made funnier from the fact that they were misfiled. Below is a document that clearly was not supposed to linger among the Middle East documents...


INCOMING TELEGRAM

Classification: SECRET [blogger’s note: don’t worry – it’s been declassified. They don’t let me see the juicy stuff]

From: FRANKFURT

To: SECRETARY OF STATE

PRIORITY

[blogger’s note: What I really like about the telegrams are the CAPITAL LETTERS. Everything they say sounds very IMPORTANT. I can’t help but picture the Clark Gable-like AMBASSADOR in FRANKFURT shouting out to his PRETTY SECRETARY the words she speedily would TYPE before a PIMPLY DELIVERY BOY took the message to the TELEGRAPHIST. The AMBASSADOR would then try to figure out what UNDERWEAR his SECRETARY was or wasn’t wearing that day, while she secretly would feel pretty BUMMED that she probably would have to SLEEP WITH HIM again in order to get that PROMOTION. I am aware that I might be over-analyzing due to the CAPITAL LETTERS…]

ACTION DEPARTMENT 48 [blogger’s note: here follows a lot of technical jibberish on which stations and departments should and should not receive a copy; what the telegram is referring to (if anything) etc. For your convenience, I will skip this – also it's awfully boring to type]

BRWKAKZXWAZK. [name altered] VOLOUNTEERED PRELIMINARY THE FOLLOWING:

IN 1961 RETURNING FROM OFFICIAL TRIP FROM EVIL COMMUNIST STATE [name altered] CAUGHT SMUGGLING TO SLIGHTLY LESS EVIL COMMUNIST STATE [name altered] A PACKAGE OF FALSE TEETH [no alterations made. Seriously!] (ABOUT 2000) [still no alterations – and you ask why I tend to laugh out loud in the researcher room?] AS FAVOUR TO COLLEAGUE. [Blogger’s note: now, here I smell something burning in the pineapple; fish in the suitcase; fudge in the bathwater – who would smuggle false teeth for a colleague? And what did this colleague need 2000 teeth for? Last I checked a grown human being only had 32 permanent teeth, though I do acknowledge that evolution may have come a long way since the 1960s. People may have needed more teeth back then, false or otherwise. Still… Fishy? With dill sauce all over it.] UNDER DETENTION ARREST FOR 4 MONTHS, HOWEVER, RELEASED AND REINSTATED TO FORMER RANK AND FORMER POSITION [IN – the annoying thing about telegrams is that they cut words that don’t significantly alter the meaning. It’s chat speak from back when “chat” was a cat in French] SLIGHTLY LESS EVIL COMMUNIST STATE AIR FORCE.

CLAIMS ESCAPE MOTIVATION BASED EXCLUSIVELY ON ANTI-COMMUNIST CONVICTION. ABOVE INFO FROM XXX [abbreviation altered], WHERE BRWKAKZXWAZK UNDERGOING ROUTINE BONA FIDES PROCESSING.

LAKES [name altered]

[Blogger’s note: since one technically isn’t supposed to misuse the documents of the archive, I figured a little anonymity couldn’t hurt. Secondly, this is also a precaution in case the deputy in Frankfurt – chances are the actual ambassador was away at some cocktail party and definitely did not send this himself – really did have an affair with his secretary. Sometimes it takes an over-active imagination to be spot-on… Finally, I figured that BRWKAKZXWAZK actually could still be alive. He could be someone’s father. Or grandfather. Or dentist.]

On recycling, part two - the squirrel saga

Unless you have heard of any major rescue missions involving trolls and Norwegian mountains, it is probably still safe to assume that I am on vacation, having a good time. In the meantime, I am taking the opportunity to recycle some of my old blog posts, as suggested by DL Hammons. The following was originally posted on October 20th, 2009:


If you haven’t already done so, you need to hear the Llama song. In fact, even if you have heard it, you need to hear it again. And again. And again.


Once it’s properly stuck... Let's change the lyrics! (As has been done, more than once)

Here’s a squirrel

There's a squirrel

And another D.C. squirrel

Hungry squirrel

Ninja squirrel

Squirrel

Squirrel

NUT!

 
I have shown you pictures of squirrels before. I have spoken of why I find them interesting (they pose for photographs). I have explained how I have a(t least one) friend who speaks Squirrel. But I have not told you about the etymology behind the word squirrel.


I don’t know the etymology behind the word (so I am not going to tell you either).

I bet you’re really disappointed now.

What I do know, however, is that the Norwegian word for squirrel is ekorn. If your mother tongue isn’t Norwegian (and what are the odds, huh?), you might not have known this (but now you do! Wee!). And thus you might also not have known that it is pronounced almost exactly like “acorn”. Coincidence? I think not! I smell a buried nut somewhere!

My theory is that either the word ekorn was exported from Norwegian to English, but somewhere along the line something got wrong; OR (and let’s face it – Norwegian isn’t exactly a world language – chances are…) it was the other way around. I can picture it clearly: an English (or Irish or American or Welsh or Australian or even Singaporian – is that what people from Singapore is called? I used to know someone from there, I should have asked him) man walks into a Norwegian bar. He is carrying an acorn. He always does this, as an ice-breaker of sorts. (His name is also Mr Acorn, but that’s besides the point.) The man, Mr. Acorn, points to the nut, and says: “acorn”. The people in the bar, the Norwegians, like the word. They actually like it so much that they decide to name the only remaining animal in Norway they hadn’t yet found a name for. Due to a common Norwegian skill of mispronouncing certain English words, however, they named it ekorn. Everyone is happy. (Pehaps except Mr. Acorn, who had to change his name since everyone kept calling him squirrel...)


The third alternative is, of course, that both the Norwegian ekorn and the English acorn are derived from the same original source. Even if this explanation is slightly more boring than the one I envisioned, it might seem like it is also slightly more realistic. From what I could find online (quick tip: what I really, really want for Christmas is a GOOD etymology dictionary. Seriously!), the Norwegian word ekorn apparently comes from the Old Norse ikorni. It also appears that both 'oak' and 'acorn' too have close ties to Old Norse. As does the Norwegian word for oak, eik. Still, they all appear to be related to a different Norse word than ikorni; akarn. If I knew any Old Norse (but I faked my way through that part of high school), I might have been able to tell you if these two words are related at all; if they both come from an even older, Indo-European word; or if these simply are slanderous speculations from my part. Until I get a second opinion from an actual etymologist (as opposed to a wannabe-etymology-geek-but-doesn’t-really-know-enough-about-it-to-qualify), my guess is as good as yours.

What I learned while trying to come up with clever ways of rounding off this post, however, is that the word “squirrel” also is a term in debating jargon. It indicates “a definition from the side of the opening speaker that makes it too easy for his or her side” (according to Wikipedia). I guess that having today’s post touch upon debating jargon is appropriate, since yesterday’s post was about a debate (and it in turn spurred a debate). Today’s post is of a lighter kind (I’m willing to claim it is Delusional Thursday material even if it’s only Tuesday), but by all means – if anyone has strong opinions about squirrels (or acorns) I’m more than happy to hear them…

On recycling

Since I am still lost in the Norwegian mountains, I have decided to take the advice of blogging buddy DL Hammons. He suggested that we all start a blogging recycle station, where we can repost posts (you have no idea how long I struggled with that phrase. "Repost posts" isn't exactly the height of elegance, but what to do? I already spent ten minutes trying to figure out a better phrasing, and I failed. I'm doomed!) from way back when we were blogging nobodies. Many of the blog posts I wrote when I was in the US, for instance, would probably entertain many of my US readers who didn't even know I existed back then. So, since I am away and not writing anyway (or at least not writing blogs. I'm fairly sure I will be writing about trolls. There is just something about those mountains that make it completely impossible to fend them off), I'm taking this opportunity to recycle one of my early posts. Ironically, I am choosing one of the posts that has the most pageviews (according to the Blogger stats, anyway). I don't think the reason it has so many pageviews is because it's been read so many times, though. See, my hit counter occasionally informs me of google searches that lead to visits on this blog. One of the top hits is someone searching for pictures of fraggles...


With no further ado (after all, there was quite a lot of ado in the previous paragraph), this post was originally posted (there we go again! Post posted! If I die of shame, please make sure to do a post-mortem on me!) on September 5th, 2009, and I was trying to make sense of living in the US of A:




Remember the Fraggles? I used to love that show (dubbed to Norwegian, of course). I knew the songs, I loved the characters, and I dreaded every visit into the Gorgs’ garden. One of my favourite parts of the show (apart from the Doozers), was the recurring event of the postcards Gobo receives from his Uncle “Traveling” Matt.

These postcards are video-clips from “Outer Space” – aka our world. They show “normal” human activities or items, seen from Matt’s outsider perspective. It always amused me how the creators could make something everyday and normal so exotic and foreign, and I enjoyed Matt’s interpretation of the situations he observed. What I didn’t realize, though, was that someday I would feel just like him:

Dear Gobo (aka everyone at home),

The Silly Creatures have really outdone themselves. Outer Space is just so BIG! The cars, the roads, the shops… It’s a miracle they don’t all get lost.

In addition to being big, Outer Space is also very, very different. It started the minute I stepped off the plane – the driver who was supposed to take me to my lodging was blabbering in this strange tongue of theirs (I must say I’m starting to get the hang of it now). He continuously asked me about something he called “the AC” – I still have no idea what he was talking about, but I wish he would have opened a window, since the car was sweltering.

The next thing I noticed about the Silly Creatures is their fondness for cinnamon. Everything either tastes or smells cinnamon. Bagels – a little unusual, but actually delicious. Coffee – I can get behind that, sometimes. Chewing gum – on this they lost me. Public bathrooms – that’s just weird.

A possible explanation to this is that the Silly Creatures have developed different taste buds than us. This would also explain why they have yoghurt that tastes sweeter than sugar. How that is possible – since there is bound to be something else besides sugar in the yoghurt – I have yet to figure out.

Now I must run to the shops which I’ve heard are crazy this weekend. The Silly Creatures are talking about preparing for “Labor Day”. I don’t know what they mean by that, but it sure sounds like hard work.

May this postcard not be intercepted by Sprocket.

All the best from your Uncle