Skinnydipping off Sweden
IT'S UNNERVING, this report about the hazards of skinnydipping off Sweden. Men have been warned against swimming nude in the Oresund Sound, between Sweden and Denmark, following the discovery there of the pacu, a fish related to the piranha of South America and possessed of a voracious appetite for the genitalia of the human male.
That is bad enough. And who knows how far the pacu might not have spread through the oceans of the world? But truly alarming is the photograph with the report, which shows a fish with baleful eye and a terrifying snaggle of gnashers.
This fish so closely resembles a woman I encountered only the other evening in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties that it's absolutely startling. To encounter her at the beach would be terrifying. They move among us. It's not so much a jungle out there as a marine hunting ground. We must beware.
Dialect
MEANWHILE, another Scandinavian connection. In the English county of Lincolnshire, they're promoting the traditional local dialect, which is Swedish-Danish based, resulting from the settlement of Vikings there more than a thousand years ago – also in East Yorkshire, the other side of the Humber estuary.
A lady called Loretta Rivett is holding sessions in the Grimsby library to promote the Lincolnshire dialect, using words and phrases like "bods" (birds); "bubs" (baby birds); "faverils" (onions); "glimmergowk" (owl); "goodies" (sweets); "mizzling" (fine rain); "haar" (even finer rain); "It's ower 'ot bi aife"; (it's been very hot); "mardy" (sulky); "mouldywarp" (mole); "Swaarmin oop trees" (climbing up trees); and "What a load of kilter and rammel" (What a load of rubbish).
She says her father used to have a "thotty stabber stee", which means a thirty-step ladder. The Swedish word for ladder? "Stege".
According to the experts a strong Lincolnshire dialect speaker could go to Scandinavia and carry out a conversation of sorts.
They really need to circulate those skinnydip warnings from Sweden around Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire as well, where they would be understood. Imagine the consequences if those pacu fish have also entered the Humber estuary.
Content analysis
ANALYSIS of words used in more than 1.5 million American and British books published between 1800 and 2000 has revealed how cultural values have changed in that time, according to researchers at the Los Angeles campus of the University of California.
They found an increase in the use of words like "choose" and "get" in the past two centuries while words like "obliged" and "give" decreased.
There was also an indication that people in modern society are more in touch with their emotions than they once were – the use of "feel" increased while "act" decreased.
The psychologists behind the study claim the shifts in language indicate how US and British society has grown more selfish as it has grown wealthier and more urban.
Professor Patricia Greenfield, who conducted the study, says: "This research shows that there has been a two century long historical shift toward individualistic psychological functioning."
But could the research not also show that computerised number-crunching is so far removed from discovering true literary meaning as to be, as they say in Lincolnshire, "a load of kilter and rammel".
Tailpiece
A WOMAN and a man have a bad collision in their cars. Both vehicles are write-offs but neither of them is hurt. They crawl from the wreckage.
Woman: "So, you're a man. That's interesting. I'm a woman. Wow, just look at our cars! There's nothing left, but we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace for the rest of our days."
Man: "I agree with you completely. This must be a sign from God."
Woman: "And here's another miracle. My car is completely wrecked, but this bottle of wine didn't break. Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune." She hands him the bottle. He opens it, drinks half and hands it back to her. She puts the cap back on
Man: "Aren't you having any?"
Woman: "Nah, I think I'll just wait for the police."
Adam ate the apple too. Will men never learn?
Last word
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
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