Surely something good happened to you today

[Fantasy Lover]

I don't know why, but I keep attacking people who are lost and ask me for directions. I'm able to help them thankfully

 

[SithHappens]

I don't know why, but I keep attacking people who are lost and ask me for directions. I'm able to help them thankfully

Just got visions of someone asking directions and after you've given them a bloody lip saying, ok second on the left, third right....

 

[fireproof78]

Saw two nerd license plates: TheGorn and GryLedr

And the nerd car parade continues as at the local supermarket there was a Jeep painted like a Jurassic Park utility jeep.

 

[Victoria]

Butterflies out in force this morning as I walked across the fields. Mainly ringlets and meadow browns but a first for me - a marbled white. Also scarlet-and-black cinnabar moths. There were a number of pale yellowish moths but I can't identify those - there's too many different species that look very alike so I'll just say they are pretty.

Goldfinches and bullfinches in the trees.

(Sadly the canal people have just cut back the verges - so the vetch and vetchling which are in flower at the minute and attract butterlies and insects are gone Worse still, all the ragwort, the favoured food plant of the cinnabar moth larvae, has gone just when it is needed)

 

[at Quark's]

Butterflies out in force this morning as I walked across the fields. Mainly ringlets and meadow browns but a first for me - a marbled white. Also scarlet-and-black cinnabar moths. There were a number of pale yellowish moths but I can't identify those - there's too many different species that look very alike so I'll just say they are pretty.

Goldfinches and bullfinches in the trees.

(Sadly the canal people have just cut back the verges - so the vetch and vetchling which are in flower at the minute and attract butterlies and insects are gone Worse still, all the ragwort, the favoured food plant of the cinnabar moth larvae, has gone just when it is needed)

Had to look up 'bullfinch'. Interestingly, 'bullfinch' apparently translates to 'goudvink' ('goldfinch'), so logically, I looked up 'goldfinch' next, which came out as 'distelvink' ('thistlefinch').

Languages are funny

 

[Victoria]

Had to look up 'bullfinch'. Interestingly, 'bullfinch' apparently translates to 'goudvink' ('goldfinch'), so logically, I looked up 'goldfinch' next, which came out as 'distelvink' ('thistlefinch').

Languages are funny

"Thistlefinch" is found in English as a dialect name (possibly "historic dialect name" now!) for the goldfinch (Carduelis Carduelis). Perhaps that's a common Germanic root.

So...I went away to see what I could find for the bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) but couldn't find anything "goldfinch"-related.

The word "spink" is used for finches and I wondered if there were a spink/vink relationship. Both words appear to go back via different roots to a Proto-German word that's also the root for "finch" ...probably...

<that's enough pretentious showing off - Ed)

 

[fireproof78]

Had to look up 'bullfinch'. Interestingly, 'bullfinch' apparently translates to 'goudvink' ('goldfinch'), so logically, I looked up 'goldfinch' next, which came out as 'distelvink' ('thistlefinch').

Languages are funny

Languages are funny. Interesting to see how the sounds translate.

 

[at Quark's]

Languages are funny. Interesting to see how the sounds translate.

With related languages it's often somewhat predictable.

For example, when I'm speaking German and I don't know a word, I can 'Germanify' a Dutch word and I think the odds are slightly better than 50% I either get it right, or that at least the German speaker knows what I'm trying to say and can come up with the correct term. In English, many words are recognisable but less predictable, presumably because the 'distance' is slightly larger.

Of course, it can go wrong as well ('false friends'). Had I not looked up 'bullfinch' it never would have occurred to me that 'goldfinch' wasn't exactly the bird I thought it was.

 

[Velocity]

I had lunch with relatives of my dear departed friends. We traded stories about my friends (their siblings). It was a good time, but also sad. We miss them so much.