Double take
Jul. 15th, 2006 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I had to share this, because I wonder if anyone else will have the same mental picture I had.
Word of the Day from http://www.askoxford.com
batwoman
• noun (pl. batwomen) a female attendant or cleaner serving an officer in the British services.
— origin Second World War: from bat (see batman) + woman.
Source: Oxford Dictionary of English
http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-861057-2
I knew about batmen, of course, but this?
My mental response was to wonder...
... What kind of an army would it be if the bat-men and -women had black wings and twitchy ears? If they were literally, physically, bat men and women? What kind of society would that be?
I really need to finish a novel one of these days so that I can write another one. :-)
Word of the Day from http://www.askoxford.com
batwoman
• noun (pl. batwomen) a female attendant or cleaner serving an officer in the British services.
— origin Second World War: from bat (see batman) + woman.
Source: Oxford Dictionary of English
http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-861057-2
I knew about batmen, of course, but this?
My mental response was to wonder...
... What kind of an army would it be if the bat-men and -women had black wings and twitchy ears? If they were literally, physically, bat men and women? What kind of society would that be?
I really need to finish a novel one of these days so that I can write another one. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-15 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-15 03:26 pm (UTC)No need to worry about a second Dave: much as I enjoy humour, I don't do it. The world is safe enough. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-15 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-15 09:59 pm (UTC)...Until lo, there was a miracle, and Plot sprang full-formed from the head of Zeus, garbed for war.
I seriously need to do more post-1700s reading. All my history books currently belong to that class of reading called, 'For later', apart from dear old Thucydides, and his History is tough going. I do well to read ten pages at a time.
But the officer-batman relationship seems to be a peculiarly British conceit, and the kind of society that fostered it seems to have been dying out by the end of WWII... *trails off into disjointed and incoherent muttering*
Hmm. I wonder if Dave will let me pick his brains about S. African history? I really need to find some decent histories of the Zulu and Boer Wars that a) weren't written over thirty years ago, and b) are not of approximately the same weight and heft as cannon balls.
The Crimean War, as well, but that's in another part of the world entirely... *more muttering*
Sorry. Thinking out loud. My local libraries aren't exactly overstocked with histories from any of the periods I'm interested in. Leaving aside the issue of finding a historian who not only knows and loves his subject but doesn't go desert-dry and nine different kinds of boring when talking about it.
Reason no. 651 why I'll probably end up in academia: they pay you to obsess about the things that fascinate you, and then communicate them. *g*
no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 10:36 pm (UTC)Anyways. I think the concept isn't totally alien to Americans, or Canadians, so it shouldn't be such a difficult thing to sell.
Academia is nice and all, but very protected. Government work is even better. ;-) You mustn't tell anyone that I said so. Plausible deniability, yanno.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 10:47 pm (UTC)If I succeed academically, I can happily and legally torture students for the rest of my days. :-) Whilst availing of nice, long, in-between-term breaks to do... other things. :-) Who wants to work for the government? They'll only screw you over and then screw you out of your pension. ;-)
I'm currently working with a lot of Polish, and learning interesting new things. The only interesting thing about work is the people. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 12:34 am (UTC)For the Polish, tell 'em I told you to (phonetically spelled) "seroye-nisht ne guvniak". See what happens. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 07:45 pm (UTC)It means, literally, "Don't make waves". The story that usually goes along with it refers to being nose-deep in cow poop...i.e., in a situation where if you make waves, you will be inundated with manure.
Then again, maybe they haven't heard the same Polish stories I have, so it wouldn't be funny. ;-) I just wondered.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 04:08 pm (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 12:05 am (UTC)