Hither and thither and morning coffee

click photo to enlarge
Though the language police would wish otherwise, language changes. Over time spelling and grammar are modified by use. New words are introduced, existing words take on new or additional meanings and old words are cast aside. I was thinking about this the other day when, in a slightly self-conscious manner, I used the phrase "hither and thither". These two words, both singly and in this pairing, are rarely heard today; they sound old-fashioned, the sort of language you'd come across in Shakespeare or in the novels and poetry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The context for my use of the phrase was an explanation to someone that we'd been travelling about a lot in recent weeks and consequently much of my photography during this time had been done beyond the confines of Lincolnshire. As I uttered the phrase, I made a mental note to try and find out whether "hither and thither" was ever in widespread use and, if so, when it became replaced by "to this place and that" or, more colloquially, "here and there". A bit of research produced no satisfactory answer to the question. Most of what I discovered came from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and from that source I was interested to find the words had more meanings than I knew.

The word, "hither" has its origins and equivalents in Old English,Old Norse and the Germanic language. "To or towards this place" (now "here") is its principal meaning. However, it was also used to mean, "to, or or on this side of", "up to this point in time", "to this end" and "in this direction". A United States variant is, apparently, "Hither and yon" (or yond). The earliest recorded use of the phrase as I used it (though with somewhat different spelling), dates from the early A.D.700s. "Thither" has a similar lineage to hither, as does "whither" ("to what place" or "where").

One of our recent "hithers" (or was it a "thither") was London. Whilst there I visited the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and took this photograph of people taking morning coffee. The bird's-eye-view of the tables and chairs, the subtle colours and raking light that produced elongated shadows, appealed to me and so it became the subject of one of my better photographs taken at that location.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Revealed - the death of the word "announced"

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I can reveal today that the word, "announced", is officially dead. Procedures have been put in place to expunge it from the dictionary and it will never more be seen again. No one knows when the word last appeared, but searches through newspapers have failed to turn up any recent examples. The usurper of this venerable word is, however, to be seen everywhere, especially in newspapers and on the web. Which word you may be asking, has taken the place of "announced"? I am able to reveal that the usurper is the word, "revealed". Having decided that "announced" is too boring - a straightforward, accurately descriptive word with no hint of mystery, no implication of journalistic enquiry, no impact - the purveyors of the printed word have toiled long and hard to replace it with "revealed". The headline that was seen as crowning the triumph of "revealed" appeared on the BBC News website on 2nd August 2011 and read, "London 2012 Olympic Park neighbourhood names revealed."

There is of course the possibility that a man dressed in evening-wear with a magic wand in one hand dramatically plucked a white cloth off a table to uncover a hidden list of these much sought after names. In which case "revealed" would have been used in the old and proper sense and the announcement of the final expiry of "announced" is premature. Or, perhaps the Olympic committee may have been trying to keep the names of the Olympic Park neighbourhoods from the public for reasons best known to themselves - they could, for example, be as ridiculous as the Olympic 2012 logo - and journalists could have been probing long and hard to bring them to light. In that case too there would have been no usurping of "announced", and revealed would have been perfectly appropriate.

But no, apparently the chief executive of Olympic Park Legacy Company (yes, such a person and organisation does exist) and the Communities Minister (on a day off from destroying what is left of the UK's communities) announced (sorry, "revealed") the names to the summoned representatives of the press. Asked why headlines would say "revealed" instead of "announced" a man from the BBC replied, "because it's sexier and it makes it look like we've done some real journalism to uncover a story."

All of which has nothing to do with today's semi-abstract photograph taken a few months ago. If, by any chance, you're wondering what on earth this blog post is going on about take note of just how many times the word "revealed" is used in a headline where "announced" makes much more sense.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO:80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Evening clouds and daylight robbery

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Reading the Guardian newspaper yesterday I was brought up short by the caption to a photograph. It should have been the photograph itself that caught my eye, one in the series "Unsettling animal picture of the week" showing a swan in the middle of the road with outstretched wings appearing to be halting the progress of a huge lorry. But, the image was not as strong as usual and it was the text that drew my attention. It said, "Swan v machine: no one knows if the bird was protesting at the lorry's carbon footprint or just trying to rob its cargo, but it did hold the traffic up for a while." It was the use of the word "rob" in place of the correct word, "steal", that caught my eye. That, I thought, is the work of a twenty-something year old, because I've seen and heard this use that I condsider a misuse - a number of times before.

Perhaps it's my age, but I can accept solecisms of this sort from the man in the street and casual writers, but I can't take it from the journalist of a serious newspaper. Moreover, being a serious daily the Guardian has its own "style guide" aimed at preventing such errors. Was the distinction between rob and steal mentioned, I wondered? It was, and here's what it says: "you rob a person or a bank, using force or the threat of violence; but you steal a car or a bag of money". Reference to the in-house authority would have allowed the writer to choose the correct word. But therein lies the problem with dictionaries, style guides and all the other works that seek to improve our use of written and spoken English: you have to aware of your limitations and the areas in which you might err before you can check them.

All this has very little to do with my evening photograph of the City of London seen from the south bank of the River Thames near Tower Bridge. I post it for the clouds (see yesterday's post). However, if you wanted to make a connection with the subject of robbing and stealing you could argue that the City is the location of the biggest and most audacious gang of thieves in the UK, one that robbed the populace of much of its wealth, and which, through the cuts being implemented by a supine and cowardly government to make good the City's losses, continues to steal from us to prevent themselves having to bear the pain of their own wrongdoing and ineptitude.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO:80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hearth, home and redundant words

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During my relatively short time on this planet I've seen words disappear from my everyday language. Take the word "aerodrome". This particularly British construction once described all the early "airfields" (a word still in use) and "airports" (today's preferred word for places with commercial flights), but is now never used except in an historical context. Or how about "palings" to describe a fence used as a boundary, and the origin of the phrase, "beyond the pale". Similarly, "petticoat" seems to have gone, not only because such full, trimmed undergarments are no longer the fashion, but also because "underskirt" replaced the word.

Looking at my photograph of the cottage at Monksthorpe Baptist Chapel, Linconshire, a building currently undergoing restoration, but still showing its old cast-iron fire with built-in ovens, it occurred to me that the word "hearth" is also becoming an endangered species. The ubiquity of central heating, gas fires and electric fires, has significantly reduced the number of open fireplaces burning wood or coal. Consequently the number of actual hearths is much fewer, and therefore the need for people to refer to the hearth is disappearing too. Phrases such as "hearth and home", and the idea of the hearth being the focal point of family life disappeared in the 1950s and 1960s, as television took over that role. And today, with the rise of computers, and other forms of entertainment and information delivery, the television is losing its place at the centre of things. Perhaps something new will come along that turns "television" into a word as antiquated as "wireless". If it draws families back together into a shared experience it will have served a useful purpose.

I took this photograph on my visit to the early eighteenth century Chapel that I have documented in another blog post here. The cottage is of an indeterminate date, but I would guess it's also eighteenth century, though the built-in stove is probably from the nineteenth century. I thought it made a good subject next to the litter of broken plaster and floor tiles, and black and white seemed to suit it better than colour.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/125 seconds
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bleeding hearts

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One of the problems of humankind is our inability to be precise. Our highly developed language does allow great precision, but it also encourages sloppy short-hand through its broad-brush terms, phrases, concepts, labels, stereotypes, etc. We all find it convenient to use a generalised word rather than describe something at greater length, with more accuracy, and that's something that can lead to misunderstanding and trouble.

Take the term, "middle class". Throw that into a conversation and some people will deny the existence of such a concept, others will see it as the embodiment of every good value, and yet others will recognise it as shorthand for comfortable complacency. Or how about the phrase "politically correct?" Is it a formulation dreamed up by those who want to continue being racist, homophobic, sexist bullies, or has Polly Toynbee got it right when she says, "politically correct society is the civilised society, however much some may squirm at the more inelegant official circumlocutions designed to avoid offence." And finally, a thought that arose with today's photograph - just what is it that "bleeding-heart liberals" are guilty of that warrants this pejorative? How does the use of this phrase advance anyone's argument? And what does it say about someone who can use the term? The fact is that many of our "short-hand" terms are crude, broad brushes that either need extensive, specific, qualification before they are used, or need excising from our language because they lead to misunderstanding or give offence.

This bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) is in its first year in my garden, having been bought a few months ago as a piece of wizened, brown root. It's been marvellous to see how a beautiful plant can arise from such unpromising beginnings. One look along the length of this undulating stem shows how the plant got its name, the earlier opening blooms on the right showing the insides of their "hearts" to a greater extent than the more recent flowers on the left.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Contre jour teasels

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The mongrel nature of the English language is shown by the number of words that derive from other languages. French, German, Dutch, Latin, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish - it seems that there isn't a people anywhere in the world that haven't contributed to English.

Some words are absorbed and the meaning is modified, as with the French verb "promenade" meaning to walk or take a walk. Though English speakers still use it in that way, today, in British English, it is more often a noun meaning the main path (and road) next to the sea where people prefer to walk for leisure. Other words have been adopted and the pronunciation Anglicised. The Hindi for a single storey house with a verandah, "bangla", was appropriated by European colonists and turned into "bungalow". Some words are absorbed with no changes to meaning, spelling and pronunciation. The French phrase "contre jour", meaning "against the day" is an example. Though English speakers do describe a photograph such as that above, as "against the light", "contre jour" is also widely used.

Winter is a great time for contre jour shots. The low sun is often behind objects that it would be above at other times of year. In winter, light is at a premium, so it's nice to be able to frame shots that emphasise it in the composition and effects. These teasels (Dipsacus fullonum), interspersed with dead umbellifers, were growing in great profusion by a stretch of water. I came upon them in midday light when each dried head had its own annulus-like halo. I was pleased to be able to include a lot of out-of-focus examples behind the nearer heads that I made the main subject of the image.

See here for more information about teasels, and for another of my contre jour shots of these attractive seed heads.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On