Miss Blurb?

In the publishing trade, a blurb is a testimonial to the book that is printed on the dust jacket. In more general use, it's a summary or brief description of a piece of work.

Today I found out the origins of the word.

In previous times, and around those times, the common practise was to print the picture of a damsel of some description, on the jacket of every novel. However, at a trade dinner in 1907, the American humorist Gelett Burgess distributed 500 copies of his book, featuring a drawing of a beautiful, buxom blonde on the jacket. He named her Miss Blinda Blurb.

The name stuck, even though blurbs are no longer drawings of women.

Lucid Dreams

Apparently, a lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that they are dreaming. The dreamer can then actively participate in and often manipulate the imaginary experiences in the dream environment.

Until recently, I'd never heard of this concept. Ever since I was a teenager, I've been having dreams where I have been aware of the fact that I was dreaming. And sometimes I would choose to wake up in order to prevent something bad from happening to me. I thought this was normal and didn't realise that not everyone could do this.

I've also long had the ability to continue dreams if they'd been interrupted and to remember conversations and details from my dreams. Some of my best dreams have been the funny ones where I've woken up laughing and continued to laugh at the funny events throughout the day.

But now that I realise that this is some kind of 'talent' and that people actually strive to achieve this, I should probably try to take it to the next level and try to actually manipulate the dream world. This could be fun!

Of goats and sheep

Barbados has its own breed of sheep - called the Barbados Black Belly Sheep. Most tourists look at them and call them goats because they don't have any wool. In doing a bit of research about this particular sheep, I came across some differences and interesting facts about sheep and goats.

• Sheep and goat are two different species. They look different and their chromosome compositions are not the same. That is why you can’t crossbreed the two animals - not easily anyway.

• The eaiest way of telling goats from sheep is by looking at the tail – goats’ tails are erect while those of sheep are hang down.

• Sheep meat is called mutton while goat meat is chevon. I never knew this - thought it was all mutton.

• Goats are more independent than a sheep. A goat will browse, picking leaves here and grass there, while a sheep will graze, putting its head down like a cow and feeding on the grass available in its path.

• Sheep are stupid. That makes them easier to herd. Goats on the other hand, choose their own paths and are harder to control. Goats will also climb.

All these years, goats have been getting bad press. In actual fact, goats are independent, outgoing, intelligent, aggressive, adventurous and choosy. Sheep on the other had are more . . . erm. . . sheepish? :)

Barleycorn shoes

How many barleycorns?

Shoe sizes have always baffled me. I’m a size 5 – but 5 what? Is that half as big as a size 10? And why so many different systems for measuring shoe sizes? I’m also a 7 in US sizes and a 38 in European sizes.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just measure in inches or centimetres/millimetres. Apparently this is what’s done in Japan and Korea (clever people).

Anyway, after a bit of research, this is what I found out.

The basic unit of shoe sizes is the barleycorn. One barleycorn is approximately 1/3 of an inch long. So the difference between a size 5 and a size 6 is one barleycorn or 1/3 of an inch.

But to complicate things slightly, a child’s size 0 in shoes is based upon the size of the theoretical smallest foot. This happens to be 12 barleycorns (4 inches) long. So then size 1 is 13 barleycorns long, size 2 is 14 etc. etc. until you hit size 12. Then you switch to adult sizes which begin again at size 0.

Luckily this is continuous so that an adult size 0 is a children’s size 12 (which is 24 barleycorns long) + 1 or 25 barleycorns. We then resume the pattern.

So to calculate the size of a shoe it’s:

Child’s size = 3*length in inches – 12

Adult’s size = 3*length in inches – 25

That’s only for English sizes though. American sizes work on a similar principle but they start at size 1 (not 0) and women’s sizes are increased by 1.5

Europeans don’t use barleycorns. They use something called paris points (2/3cm) and the size is the length of the last in paris points.

But alas there is a catch here. The ‘length’ used in the above calculations is not the length of the shoe or of the person’s foot. It is the length of the last. The last being the template used to build the shoe. From my experience, it tends to be close to the size of the shoe – so the foot would be a bit smaller.

Phrase two - two expressions I found myself wondering about

There are phrases that we often use in everyday language without giving a 2nd thought. Sometimes I'll find myself wondering 'where the hell did that expression come from'. Two that I've pondered recently are 'dead ringer' and 'scot-free'.


Dead Ringer
Contrary to what some may believe, this expression has nothing to do with ringing a bell from within a coffin.

Apparently in horseracing circles a 'ringer' is a horse that's similar in appearance to another one and is used as a substitute (dishonestly) in races. This is done to defraud the bookies. So the word 'ringer' has come to mean any very close duplicate.

Dead, in the sense of lifeless, is so commonly used that we tend to ignore its other meanings. But 'dead' also means exact or precise. E.g. 'dead shot', 'dead centre', 'dead heat', etc.

So combinge 'dead' and 'ringer' and you get something that means and exact or precise copy.

Scot-free
My initial thoughts were that this had to have somethinng to do with a Scotsman who got away without paying for something. Others seem to think that it had something to do with a slave called Dred Scott who was made free by his owner. Neither is the correct origin.

Scot is a Scandinavian word for tax or payment. It came to the UK as a form of redistributive taxation which was levied as early the 13th century as a form of municipal poor relief. The term is a contraction of 'scot and lot'. Scot was the tax and lot, or allotment, was the share given to the poor.

Scot as a term for tax has been used since then to mean many different types of tax. Whatever the tax, the phrase 'scot free' just refers to not paying one's taxes.

Now that makes me wonder why scotland is called Scotland . . .