And even more than that and "canapé"—
His own best kind of present,
A heart and mindful bezant—
So I could write a verseful hogmanay!
And just in, this from another friend, Kat:
Oh, hogmanay, hogmanay, hogmanay!
When fireworks blaze to paint-start the day;
First footing & redding,
Bells, dancing, late bedding,
And juniper burned to keep ghosts at bay.
I've listened to the pronunciation on the Web. I would render it as HOG-muh-nay. So "come and play" and "canape" would rhyme well.
ReplyDeleteA very nice new year's gift would be a bottle of Beaujolais.
Well, dictionary.com did specify the pronunciation as "\hog-muh-NEY\," and I have checked my Webster's New Collegiate, which agrees, although it gives secondary stress to the first syllable: "ˌhäg-mə-ˈnā."
ReplyDeleteAha! Unlike my hardcover Webster's, the Merriam-Webster website (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hogmanay) gives the alternate pronunciation:"ˈhäg-mə-ˌ." You were apparently listening to someone who prefers the alternate (or might not be aware of the pronunciation that at least two dictionaries report as primary--not to say that they prescribe it).
Ken, your comment reminded me that I meant to post a new year's resolution, which I just did: Talk less, listen more.
ReplyDeleteSince you're not going to get a bottle of Beaujolais from me, alas, I hope that one of your own resolutions (if any) is to drink less, in which case you may consider my not giving you a bottle a sort of New Year's gift in your own best interest.
By the way, how do you like my new blog mug shot? I think I look like Henry James, just less bald and fat.
Mo, I wasn't asking for a gift, just offering a sentence whose principal word rhymes with hogmanay.
ReplyDeleteYour new blog pic shows a formidable if not defiant person... which is fine. But it doesn't jibe with the self-description "I'm nobody."
Ken, Thanks for straightening me out about the wine. I almost feel like commenting "LOL."
ReplyDeleteWell, showing one's picture of any description doesn't exactly accord with one's claiming to be "nobody"! I'm open to suggestions for something to replace the Dickinson quotation. You know me better than most and might be well situated to offer an apt statement or quotation. What might you suggest? In the meantime, prompted by this interchange, I'll also be thinking of something to replace the Dickinson quote with.
I looked briefly at some of my posts labeled "self-disclosure" and found this quotation (of myself):
"Discovering a significant truth is energizing. Rather, not discovering the truth, per se, but discovering something true or false that you think is true—like the experience of people (of whom I was once one) who 'discover God' on a lonely road (or in a tent revival meeting) and walk on with delight at having 'seen the light.' Never mind that 'God' doesn't exist and their discovery is, in that sense, a sham. They think (as I once did) that God exists (and, more pertinently, is watching over them personally)."
That quote was from "Brain Drain," June 2010.
ReplyDeleteSure there's a picture that fits the "I'm nobody" quote. It's the "inane smile" face that can be found in a billion photos. You'd be declaring yourself as one of the masses.
ReplyDeleteIf I had a blog — I never will — I'd use my favorite quote from Shakespeare: "There is no darkness but ignorance." You're welcome to use it.
But, Ken, I imagine that few if any of those pictured inanely smiling are even aware that they're nobody and, hence, they're implicitly incapable of asserting of themselves,"I'm nobody."
ReplyDeleteI think that I'd be more consistent in using the Dickinson quote if I didn't display a photo of myself at all.
Which is another reason for changing the quotation. Your favorite Shakespeare quote is provocative but I need to muse on it and discover its precise source in the bard's writings.
Carolyn and I watched Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" for the third or fourth time over the holidays, and we acquired it on Blu-ray disc to replace our old VHS set.
I think I need a Henry James quote.
Here's a good one: "Life is a predicament which precedes death." The source (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/henry_james_2.html) doesn't identify the precise source in James's writings.
ReplyDeleteOr: "The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy...what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be?"
Or yet: "The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have."
And: "Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind."
But, for now, I've already chosen for my profile the first one that appealed to me (about the "spider-web" of consciousness). It goes so well with the enterprise of self-discovery that is blogging.