[lit-ideas] Re: Hexit, Brexit - and 'The Best of Britain'
- From: david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2016 15:49:12 -0700
On Jun 27, 2016, at 1:42 AM, epostboxx@xxxxxxxx wrote:
P.S. The ‘horse’ metaphor is not so far-fetched when referring to bicycles —
in German one of the colloquial (though slightly archaic) terms for bicylce
is ‘Drahtesel’ (literally ‘wire donkey’)
This cheered me through a difficult soccer day. Instead of shouting at the
screen, “Oi, Sterling, on yer bike, son,” I could fall back on, “Boys, I’ll
lend you me wire donkey.”
Seems to me England were not so much (three) lions led by donkeys as donkeys
led by coaches who were suffering from delusions, “Oy yes, one of these days
the team will gel and then…watch out.”
Gel, as in the stuff they put in their hair, the cause of some stickiness among
the leaves of grass?
I have wondered why Whitman didn’t call his book, “Blades of Grass.”
Wikipedia says it’s a pun, "The title Leaves of Grass was a pun. ‘Grass' was a
term given by publishers to works of minor value and "leaves" is another name
for the pages on which they were printed.” This apparently amused the Scots,
James and Andrew Rome, who helped him print it in an (unnamed) Scottish typeface
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_47.html
I, too, have a Raleigh bike, which I no longer ride. Pop round and I’ll give
it to you. For all I know it may be, like my cast-iron pans, a collectors’
item.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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