Truncheons and stanchions

A search through my clippings, and on my computer, reveals that I don't have any reference whatsoever to the word stanchion, likeable enough as it is as a word.   Which means I won't have any reference to the phrase plastic stanchions either.  In fact, the word is so little visible in my vocabulary that I had to look it up on Google to remind myself what it meant.  It sounds a bit like truncheon but isn't related, as far as I'm aware.  Which led me to look and see what truncheon comes up with when you go off to Wikipedia.  They suggest the obvious: a policeman's baton, but there are three other references there as well.  A truncheon can be a stem cutting off a plant which is then used as a means of plant propagation used by gardeners.  Well, I guess gardeners would know that use of it, though I don't (I'm too amateur a gardener, obviously).  Truncheon is also the staff of a spear, but this is so obsolete a usage that only someone like Tolkien would know it well enough to use it in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

HMS Truncheon

The word was also used as the name of a Royal Navy submarine that was commissioned in the last few months of the Second World War.   It served with the Navy until 1968 when it was bought by the Israelis and renamed the INS Dolphin.  She was eventually scrapped nine years later, so I hope the Israelis got their money's worth. Well, there you go!  Your bit of trivia for the day.   (We went to a quiz night at a local pub recently; it's surprising what you know, what you're pretty sure you know and have to argue for, and what you have absolutely no idea about whatsoever - sport, mostly, for me, although even there I managed to suggest some possibilities.)

Truncheon, as you might expect, is a word with some French history.  It first appeared in our language, as far as we know, around the 14th century, when it went under the Middle English umbrella as tronchoun.  Its parentage was the Anglo-French word, trunchun, and that in turn goes way back to the Vulgar Latin word truncion/truncio, which comes from the 'proper' Latin word, truncus, which means a trunk.  I suppose there's a connection between a trunk (the trunk of an elephant?) and the baton we know today, but it seems a bit of a distance.

Stanchion (to go back to where we started in this post) initially has a similar history: Middle English stanchon, Anglo-French stanchun or stançun.  These words, however, were alterations of an Old French word, estançon, which is apparently a diminutive of estance, meaning a stay or a prop.  At least stanchion starts where it ends, you might say.  [Thanks, Merrian-Webster, by the way.]  Estance is a fancier ancestor to have than truncio, I think, even if it's not quite a old.

It just occurs to me that in our usual English spelling fashion we have managed to make one of these words end in 'ion' and the other in 'eon'.  Ain't English fun?

Perhaps because stanchion has retained its original meaning rather more, it tends mostly to relate to things that stand upright and hold something else. Those little things you see in restaurants where they hold the number of your order are a form of stanchion, I suspect, though I don't know if they're actually called that.  Stanchions appear in restaurants more as a form of crowd control: they'll often have a rope dangling between them to stop unworthy patrons from joining worthy ones.  [See the fancy model to the right.]  I notice them mostly in banks where they force people to form queues, and where children delight in dropping the connecting 'rope' (of whatever form) off one stanchion, find they've just received a disapproving look from a parent, and then have to figure out how to put it back again.  

Wilmington, NC

At one point I wrote a number of posts on this blog about the city of Boise, in Idaho, (just put Boise in the search box above) never suspecting that this year I'd discover that my son's girlfriend comes from there.  Must have been premonition!   She has taught us exactly how it's pronounced, which was one of the foci of my posts in the past.  Good to have these things clarified, even if my son has to fall in love with a girl from the Northern Hemisphere to get it clarified.

There's no such difficulty in pronouncing Wilmington, (the home of Wilmington NC real estate), at least not as far as I'm aware.   Or am I about to get myself involved in a series of discussions about the actual, totally proper, correct pronunciation of the word?   Don't think so.   I suspect it's difficult for anyone who's spoken English since they were one year old to mistake the pronunciation of Wilmington.   It's more of an English word than American anyway. 

I knew nothing about Wilmington (nor Wilmington NC real estate - sorry, but I have to keep throwing that in; it's kind of a rhyming slang), so thought I'd do a little research on the place.   Firstly, it's very likely it's named after Wilmington in England, which is located 12 miles from Eastbourne and has been inhabited since Saxon times. The 12th Century Parish Church is dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Peter. (That's not as old as the church where my parents-in-law are buried, though, which can clock up nearly a 1000 years.) The local public house is called The Giant's Rest, probably in homage to the Long Man of Wilmington, a giant chalk figure carved on the slopes of Windover Hill. It is one of only two human hill figures in England.

Wilmington NC isn't quite so old, but still has some impressive history: for instance, during the Civil War, the port was a major base for Confederate blockade runners.    A de facto coup d'etat (as Wikipedia puts it, nicely mixing Latin and French) took place there, when a mob ran a number of African Americans out of the town.  During the second world war, the city had a prisoner of war camp, which housed over 500 German prisoners at its peak. 

And for those creative people among you, the city is home to EUE Screen Gem Studios, the largest television and movie production facility outside of California. "Dream Stage 10," the facility's newest sound stage, is the third-largest in the US.  It houses the largest special-effects water tank in North America.

Surprisingly, the city's population is only just over 100,000, something I checked up on, as it seemed a small number of people for a place that has one of the largest historic districts in the country, encompassing nearly 300 blocks.   I mean, the city where I live, which has a population of about 130,000, would be lucky to be able to encompass 300 city blocks (!)

On the reasons for beards

Robert Capon, in his book, The Offering of Uncles, gives seventeen reasons why he has a beard. (Chapter 7)

(Simple) : I like it.
(Taciturn); I just do.
(Sheepish): Lots of men have beards.
(Rude): None of your business.
(Cowardly): Oh! Don’t you like it?
(Confident): It is manly.
(Overconfident): It keeps women away.
(Practical, in respectu causae efficientis): Because I don’t shave.
(Agnostic): I don’t know; I stopped shaving and it grew.
(Theological, but cautious): You will have to ask God.
(Practical, propter incommoditatem rasurarum): I was tired of cutting myself every morning.
(Devout): It is a gift of God.
(Practical, pro bono prolis): I look more paternal with one.
(Meditative): It would be ungrateful to die without having seen it.
(Practical, sed propter vanitatem): It hides my weak chin.
(Theological, propter causam finalem): God meant man to have one.
(Practical, ad placendam uxorem): It tickles my wife.

Some rough translations:
in respectu causae efficientis: in the cause of efficiency.
propter incommoditatem rasurarum: on account of the scratching.
pro bono prolis: for the good of the children.
sed propter vanitatem: on account of my vanity.
propter causam finalem: using God as the final excuse.
ad placendam uxurem: to please my wife.


And a Crowl quote:
Life should be a combination of order and chaos. Too much of either is unhealthy.

The Te of Piglet

Benjamin Hoff wrote the book, The Tao of Pooh, sometime in the nineties, and followed it up a while after with The Te of Piglet, which I bought secondhand while I was in England, put in a box of stuff that was sent home by sea, parked on a shelf and then forgot about until the other day, when I was looking for something to take on the plane with me to Auckland.
I haven’t read the Pooh book, so I can’t compare the two, but The Te of Piglet is best when it’s telling stories from Taoism’s great wealth of wisdom, or when it’s quoting Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books directly. Hoff’s own contribution is mostly to pull the Tao and the Milne together, and fill in the gaps. He writes kind of mini-essays between - some of which are interesting – and dialogues between the Milne characters which lack the charm of the originals (especially Eeyore, whom he just doesn’t get right at all), and some of the most inexorable poetry I’ve come across in a good while. Published poetry, that is.
Nevertheless I enjoyed the book a great deal, including some of Hoff’s own musings. He knows his Tao, he knows his Milne, and he’s managed to bring the two together comfortably. I’m not entirely sure that the Piglets of this world would feel he does them justice; he promises a little more than he achieves. But it’s kind of nice to know that I’m more of a Piglet than an Eeyore – as someone dubbed me once. I may have some Eeyore characteristics, but it isn’t my modus operandi.
In the back of my copy of this book are advertisements for all the other Pooh spin-offs. The Latin version of Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie ille Pu) is advertised, but it had been around for some time. However, there’s a follow-up to that too: Domus Anguli Puensis – or The House at Pooh Corner.
And then there’s Pooh and the Philosophers, Pooh and the Ancient Mysteries (good grief!), The Pooh Book of Quotations and The Pooh Dictionary.
But wait, there’s more! Winnie-the-Pooh on Management (yeah, right!), Winnie-the-Pooh on Problem Solving (please!), Winnie-the-Pooh on Success.
And if you thought those were ridiculous, try these: Pooh’s Little Fitness Book, Winnie-the-Pooh’s Teatime Cook Book (using nothing but honey, presumably), Winnie-the-Pooh’s Trivia Quiz Book, Eeyore’s Gloomy Little Instruction Book, and finally Pooh’s Little Instruction Book.
I wonder how many of them made any money?