(insp.)
No title available

titsay
Three Goblin Art
No title available

@theartofmadeline
Cosmic Funnies
Jules of Nature
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
Xuebing Du
tumblr dot com
styofa doing anything
$LAYYYTER
Show & Tell

if i look back, i am lost

JVL
Mike Driver
d e v o n
No title available
trying on a metaphor

blake kathryn

seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia

seen from T1

seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Finland
seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia
seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from France

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Malaysia
seen from Brazil
seen from Italy

seen from United States
@hedredhead
(insp.)
“In 1921, early suffragettes often donned a bathing suit and ate pizza in large groups to annoy men…it was a custom at the time.”
TIME TO REVIVE A CUSTOM
Rewrite a classic fairy tale by telling it backwards. The end is now the beginning.
Once upon a time there was a princess who loved so deeply that her heart was worn constantly on her sleeve. She fell in love with a prince, and the next year, her father allowed them to be wed- he remembered his own wife every day, and wished his daughter to be as happy as he had been.
The day of the wedding came, and the girl walked down the aisle in a dress of gentle silver. The Prince took her hand and smiled, and leant in to kiss her.
For luck, he would later say. A kiss for luck, a smile for joy, a laugh for a happy ending. It was a saying his own family had had for years, but it was a saying that failed him.
For the second his lips touched hers, she fell to the floor with a sigh.
Not dead they healers told the prince. not dead but sleeping, not dead but unable to wake.
The prince- so ashamed, so in fear of his life and hers- stole her away from the castle that night, away from her father and her people, so they would never have to watch her waste away.
He hid her in a forest, in a casket of diamond and ice, and he waited. Waited, for he did not even know where to start. He did not even know if the hope for her waking had a point.
He was there for two days when they found him. Seven short folk, small men with beards and axes in their hands, and harsh smiles on their faces.
We can help you they said to him, the six cackling behind the speaker. But, prince, it will come at a price.
I would pay anything. He vowed. Only later, realising he should have asked what it would be.
The Seven disappeared and left him on his own. Alone, other than the silent not-dead princess at his side.
When they returned there was an eighth with them- an old frail woman with a basket in her hands.
We will wake her she said, pulling out an apple and throwing it in their air but you will never look at her, talk to her again, and she will work in the mines with my dwarves here.
He wanted to say no. But knowing she was alive, even out of reach, was better than sleep and near death.
so yes he said. Help her.
The old woman smiled and picked out a knife, cutting the apple into small parts. One, she handed to the prince, the other, she took over to the casket, and opening it, she placed it on the princess’ lips.
A gasp, a flash of her eyes opening, and the prince knew nothing more.
***
The princess woke in a place she did not know, surrounded by people she did not know. An old woman and short men- and her prince, asleep on the ground.
He is not dead the old woman said only sleeping. But around you, he will never wake. He saved you but cursed you both- and now your life is tied to my mines.
The princess tried to fight, to leave.
But the old woman had magic and she did not, and the dwarves were all she knew for many years. Sometimes as friends, sometimes as enemies, often arguing but always allies, they worked side by sides in the underground mines, looking for fairydust and rubies, magic and gold.
They taught her the songs of work and the songs of marches, and soon she forgot that she had even been a princess.
One evening she was walking back to their home alone, when she heard a noise to her left. She looked, expecting a rabbit, a bird, but out stepped a man with a bow in his hands.
You shouldn’t be out in the woods alone he said to her.
This is my home.
Trees are no home for anyone. She wondered if she should tell him of the many people hidden in the forest, each with no where else to go come with me.
Why?
Because I have a place you can go.
She should have said no- but what was there for her in the trees and the mine? So she took his hand and he led her out into the bright daylight, through winding roads intil they arrived at a castle she did not know.
where are we? she asked.
The Huntsman smiled my home, and the home of my queen.
He led her in through the doors, up to a room where a woman was sat on a throne. The woman stood as she saw the princess, staring at her in wide eyed shock.
You look just like her the queen whispered.
Once, the Huntsman said quietly, seeing the question in the princess’ eyes my queen had a child. A daughter who should have been your age. But she was stolen away by the man my queen loved.
You-
I’m not her the princess said- but she had never known her mother. Only her father and an empty throne at his side.
No. the queen said, her tone one of disbelief. But I am in need of an heir, and you in need of care. Stay here a while, and let us see.
You said, ‘I love you.’ Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? ‘I love you’ is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them but now I am alone on a rock hewn out of my own body.
Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (via wordsnquotes)
“Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”
— (via be-killed)
But, but, but!
But, no, because there are reasons for all of those seemingly weird English bits.
Like “eggplant” is called “eggplant” because the white-skinned variety (to which the name originally applied) looks very egg-like.
The “hamburger” is named after the city of Hamburg.
The name “pineapple” originally (in Middle English) applied to pine cones (ie. the fruit of pines - the word “apple” at the time often being used more generically than it is now), and because the tropical pineapple bears a strong resemblance to pine cones, the name transferred.
The “English” muffin was not invented in England, no, but it was invented by an Englishman, Samuel Bath Thomas, in New York in 1894. The name differentiates the “English-style” savoury muffin from “American” muffins which are commonly sweet.
“French fries” are not named for their country of origin (also the United States), but for their preparation. They are French-cut fried potatoes - ie. French fries.
“Sweetmeats” originally referred to candied fruits or nuts, and given that we still use the term “nutmeat” to describe the edible part of a nut and “flesh” to describe the edible part of a fruit, that makes sense.
“Sweetbread” has nothing whatsoever to do with bread, but comes from the Middle English “brede”, meaning “roasted meat”. “Sweet” refers not to being sugary, but to being rich in flavour.
Similarly, “quicksand” means not “fast sand”, but “living sand” (from the Old English “cwicu” - “alive”).
The term boxing “ring” is a holdover from the time when the “ring” would have been just that - a circle marked on the ground. The first square boxing ring did not appear until 1838. In the rules of the sport itself, there is also a ring - real or imagined - drawn within the now square arena in which the boxers meet at the beginning of each round.
The etymology of “guinea pig” is disputed, but one suggestion has been that the sounds the animals makes are similar to the grunting of a pig. Also, as with the “apple” that caused confusion in “pineapple”, “Guinea” used to be the catch-all name for any unspecified far away place. Another suggestion is that the animal was named after the sailors - the “Guinea-men” - who first brought it to England from its native South America.
As for the discrepancies between verb and noun forms, between plurals, and conjugations, these are always the result of differing word derivation.
Writers write because the meaning of the word “writer” is “one who writes”, but fingers never fing because “finger” is not a noun derived from a verb. Hammers don’t ham because the noun “hammer”, derived from the Old Norse “hamarr”, meaning “stone” and/or “tool with a stone head”, is how we derive the verb “to hammer” - ie. to use such a tool. But grocers, in a certain sense, DO “groce”, given that the word “grocer” means “one who buys and sells in gross” (from the Latin “grossarius”, meaning “wholesaler”).
“Tooth” and “teeth” is the legacy of the Old English “toð” and “teð”, whereas “booth” comes from the Old Danish “boþ”. “Goose” and “geese”, from the Old English “gōs” and “gēs”, follow the same pattern, but “moose” is an Algonquian word (Abenaki: “moz”, Ojibwe: “mooz”, Delaware: “mo:s”). “Index” is a Latin loanword, and forms its plural quite predictably by the Latin model (ex: matrix -> matrices, vertex -> vertices, helix -> helices).
One can “make amends” - which is to say, to amend what needs amending - and, case by case, can “amend” or “make an amendment”. No conflict there.
“Odds and ends” is not word, but a phrase. It is, necessarily, by its very meaning, plural, given that it refers to a collection of miscellany. A single object can’t be described in the same terms as a group.
“Teach” and “taught” go back to Old English “tæcan” and “tæhte”, but “preach” comes from Latin “predician” (“præ” + “dicare” - “to proclaim”).
“Vegetarian” comes of “vegetable” and “agrarian” - put into common use in 1847 by the Vegetarian Society in Britain.
“Humanitarian”, on the other hand, is a portmanteau of “humanity” and “Unitarian”, coined in 1794 to described a Christian philosophical position - “One who affirms the humanity of Christ but denies his pre-existence and divinity”. It didn’t take on its current meaning of “ethical benevolence” until 1838. The meaning of “philanthropist” or “one who advocates or practices human action to solve social problems” didn’t come into use until 1842.
We recite a play because the word comes from the Latin “recitare” - “to read aloud, to repeat from memory”. “Recital” is “the act of reciting”. Even this usage makes sense if you consider that the Latin “cite” comes from the Greek “cieo” - “to move, to stir, to rouse , to excite, to call upon, to summon”. Music “rouses” an emotional response. One plays at a recital for an audience one has “called upon” to listen.
The verb “to ship” is obviously a holdover from when the primary means of moving goods was by ship, but “cargo” comes from the Spanish “cargar”, meaning “to load, to burden, to impose taxes”, via the Latin “carricare” - “to load on a cart”.
“Run” (moving fast) and “run” (flowing) are homonyms with different roots in Old English: “ærnan” - “to ride, to reach, to run to, to gain by running”, and “rinnan” - “to flow, to run together”. Noses flow in the second sense, while feet run in the first. Simillarly, “to smell” has both the meaning “to emit” or “to perceive” odor. Feet, naturally, may do the former, but not the latter.
“Fat chance” is an intentionally sarcastic expression of the sentiment “slim chance” in the same way that “Yeah, right” expresses doubt - by saying the opposite.
“Wise guy” vs. “wise man” is a result of two different uses of the word “wise”. Originally, from Old English “wis”, it meant “to know, to see”. It is closely related to Old English “wit” - “knowledge, understanding, intelligence, mind”. From German, we get “Witz”, meaning “joke, witticism”. So, a wise man knows, sees, and understands. A wise guy cracks jokes.
The seemingly contradictory “burn up” and “burn down” aren’t really contradictory at all, but relative. A thing which burns up is consumed by fire. A house burns down because, as it burns, it collapses.
“Fill in” and “fill out” are phrasal verbs with a difference of meaning so slight as to be largely interchangeable, but there is a difference of meaning. To use the example in the post, you fill OUT a form by filling it IN, not the other way around. That is because “fill in” means “to supply what is missing” - in the example, that would be information, but by the same token, one can “fill in” an outline to make a solid shape, and one can “fill in” for a missing person by taking his/her place. “Fill out”, on the other hand, means “to complete by supplying what is missing”, so that form we mentioned will not be filled OUT until we fill IN all the missing information.
An alarm may “go off” and it may be turned on (ie. armed), but it does not “go on”. That is because the verb “to go off” means “to become active suddenly, to trigger” (which is why bombs and guns also go off, but do not go on).
I have never been so turned on in my entire life.
Are you Susie Dent from Dictionary Corner?
Ok, I love the poetry of the first part, and I love the explanations in the second because I learned things.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
People say I love you all the time - when they say, ‘take an umbrella, it’s raining,’ or ‘hurry back,’ or even ‘watch out, you’ll break your neck.’ There are hundreds of ways of wording it - you just have to listen for it, my dear.
John Patrick, The Curious Savage (via thelovejournals)
me: *wearing a ring*
guy: are you engaged?
me: engaged in combat *punches the guy in the face*
Do u ever just think about the first time u met someone & then compare it to where u guys are now & its like wow who knew this would happen.
The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You’ll be let down. You’ll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But, sh*t, you roll up your sleeves and work - at everything -because that’s what growing older is.
Dennis Lehane, Mystic River (via wordsnquotes)
I can’t explain how much I love them.
Crystal Mill - Colorado - USA (by Steve Ornberg)
tol grump, smol cutie.
{or the grump acquiescing to the cutie because he is immune to her charm}
Seven half-bloods shall answer the call…
Alberobello - Italy (by Silvia Sala)