When the bevel drives

[PeterW]

Still browsing through some old magazines, in the vain hope that I could throw some away to make more space. In a technical mag about auto engineering I saw the following headline for a feature on drive axles:

When the bevel drives ... or even a worm will turn.

Well, it made me chuckle anyway.

PeterW

[mickeyobe]

Perplexed.

Mickey

[PeterW]

Hi Mickey,

Sorry to perplex you. Just riding my hobby horse of old English language. Maybe I should have labelled it Transatlantic Quiz. It's typical English oblique humour.

Two very old English sayings ...

1. When something just has to be done, you do it even though you'd much rather not.
'Needs must when the Devil drives'.
('Needs must' is archaic for 'necessity demands'. 'When the devil drives = 'when there's no alternative')

Earliest use I can find is in John Lydgate’s Assembly of Gods, written about 1420: “He must nedys go that the deuell dryves”.
Shakespeare - inevitably - also used it

2. A person, group of people or even the humblest of animals, downtrodden and exploited for years will finally revolt ...
'Even a worm will turn'.

Earliest reference: - John Heywood (1497-1580) "Treade a worme on the tayle and it must turn agayne."

Application to automobile drive axles: There are two main types of drive axles:
pinion and bevel drive, and worm and wheel drive.

Old sayings like this were frequently used in 19th century music hall songs, often with double entendre. For example, when a downtrodden husband finally leaves his domineering wife:

'She was a sweet little dickey bird,
Tweet, tweet, tweet she went.
Sweetly she sang to me
Till all my money was spent.
Then she went off song,
We parted on fighting terms.
She was one of the early birds,
And I was one of the worms'

The working class audiences, illiterate though many of them were, knew these old sayings and appreciated the double meanings. ie, 'the early bird catches the worm', and 'even a worm will turn'.

PeterW

[Randy]

My Dad was a mechanic in the army during WWII, and he always said "when the pinion pings, throw some grease in the da*m things!"

[mickeyobe]

I am sure there can not possibly be another language as colourful and versatile and expressive as English.

On a tree by the river a little tom tit
Sang "willow, tit willow, tit willow".
And I said to him "dickey bird why do you sit
Singing willow, tit willow, tit willow?
"Is it weakness of intellect?" birdie I cried
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"
With a shake of his poor little head he replied
"O willow, tit willow, tit willow".

Or something like that.
Is there some hidden meaning that has escaped me?

Mickey

[PeterW]

Mickey, No double meanings I fancy, just humourous imagery. That's one of W. S. Gilbert's lyrics from The Mikado, when Ko-Ko sings of his unrequited love. It depends for effect on the way the lines are delivered, and over the years there have been some show-stopping performances. Of course, Sullivan's wonderful bitter-sweet music contributes greatly. Perhaps the whole lyric makes it more clear?

On a tree by a river a little tom-tit
Sang "Willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing 'Willow, tit-willow, tit-willow?'"
"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried,
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"
With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
"Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"

He slapp'd at his chest as he sat on that bough,
Singing "Willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
And a cold perspiration bespangled his brow,
Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!
He sobb'd and he sigh'd, and a gurgle he gave,
Then he threw himself into the billowy wave,
And an echo arose from the suicide's grave-
"Oh willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"

Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name
Isn't Willow tit-willow, tit-willow,
That 'twas blighted affection that made him exclaim,
"Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
And if you remain callous and obdurate, I
Shall perish as he did, and you will know why,
Though I probably shall not exclaim as I die,
"Oh willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"

It's comparable with Gilbert and Sullivan's 'I have a song to sing-O!' from the Yeomen of the Guard. What a talented partnership that was.

PeterW

[PeterW]

I am sure there can not possibly be another language as colourful and versatile and expressive as English.

Oh dear, Mickey, now you've got me started. One of the strengths of English, one that makes it so powerful in expression, is that there is no rigidly set order of words in a sentence.

Take for example, a line from
‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, written by Thomas Gray (1716–71):

'The plowman homeward plods his weary way'. It could have been written 'The plowman plods his weary homeward way' or 'Homward the plowman plods his weary way' or 'The weary plowman plods his homeward way', or half a dozen other ways. But in the context, Gray's word choice is best. Note, btw, Gray's use of the old English spelling of plowman, still used I believe in the US. Under the influence of Victorian grammarians, steeped in classical Greek and Latin, it became 'ploughman'.

If you haven't read ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, please do. It's fairly long, but each verse is short, and each verse is worth lingering over for Gray's use of English. Many lines from it have passed into the world of quotations. For example 'Far from the madding crowd' and 'The paths of glory lead but to the grave'. Note the effective use of 'but' instead of 'only'.

You can find the whole poem at www.photoaspects.com/chesil/gray/

Thanks, Randy, for starting this Open Topic part of the board where we can, occasionally, talk about things other than cameras.

PeterW

[Randy]

Okay...here is the $1,000.00 question, what exactly is "spotted dick"

[PeterW]

Okay...here is the $1,000.00 question, what exactly is "spotted dick"

It's steamed suet pudding, usually log-shaped, containing dried fruits - currants, raisins, dates etc to choice. The best ones also contain just a few spices, and a dash of brandy. It should be light and fluffy, not heavy like dough, and served hot, with custard. My mother used to make it. Wonderful on a cold day!

PeterW
(do I get my grand now, or later? )

[Randy]

peterw said:

(do I get my grand now, or later? )

Peter...I'd rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it....Thanks!!! ;D

[kiev4a]

"(do I get my grand now, or later? )"

Peter. At current rates $1,000 U.S. is less than 500 Pounds. Hardly worth the trouble!

Wayne

[mickeyobe]

Randy,

Spotted Dick sounds very much like pemmican without the buffalo meat and hair.

Mickey

[John Parry]

Come on Peter - move on!

How about:

lorry.org/Docs/Poems/Other/oldwoman.html

Bet your Mrs would have loved it!!

Regards - John

[PeterW]

OK, John. Thanks for the link.

I read it, and as prose I liked it and enjoyed it ... but poetry it isn't. Not even blank verse.

Poetry doesn't have to be written in one of the classical metres, nor be solemn, nor necessarily rhyme, nor even use high-sounding phrases and deep intellectual thoughts to be good. Have a look at the 'common language' poetry of John Pudney, or Ogden Nash.

One of my favourites among the 'modern' poets is Lance Sieveking, pioneering radio and television producer as well as a writer, and mildly eccentric.

In the days when everyone else at the BBC wore a dark suit, Sieveking would turn up in grey flannel trousers, sports jacket and an open-neck coloured shirt. This infuriated the Director General John Reith who was a stickler for propriety, but Reith knew that, if criticised for it, Sieveking would probably leave, and also knew that Sieveking was far too brilliantly talented to allow that to happen.

Sieveking was a friend of my Dad when my Dad was at the BBC in the 1920s and 1930s. He gave a copy of all his books to my Dad, usually with a dedication written in green ink on the flyleaf.

He described one of them, which he called Bats in the Belfry, as 'a book of nonsense poems'. Light poetry it is, but nonsense - oh no. Let me quote just a few lines from one of the poems, written after Sieveking, in his open car, was stuck behind a charabanc (nowadays a coach), full of noisy day trippers, on the road to Brighton.

"The mud and dust fly up behind,
My mouth is full, my eyes are blind.
The roadway doesn't taste as good
As roads in country England should.
It wasn't boiled enough, it's gritty.
It has the flavour of the city."

Many of those day tripper charabancs were full of the 1930s equivalent of todays 'lager louts' who carried crates of beer with them. It was their habit to throw the empty bottles out of the window, hence ...

"Their empty bottles strew the heath,
A shower of ghastly dragon's teeth.
They sing a loud improper song
About a lady who went wrong.
Oh, why am I compelled to be
In such unpleasant company?"

I still have some of the books. On the flyleaf of Bats in the Belfry the dedication, in verse, ends with ...

"Wallage, Wallage, share your knowledge,
A little Wallage is a dangerous thing."

A deliberate misquotation by Sieveking, as well as a reference to a very young me and a play on the family name. He signed his dedications L deG S, the deG standing for his middle name deGiberne.

In another book, one of his novels with which he had struggled and with which my Dad had encouraged him, the dedication is quite short. It reads:

Dear W.
Here is this book.
This bloody book.
In gratitude.
L deG S.

PeterW

[Rachel]

I always enjoyed a bit of nonsense ...

Jabberwocky

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

`Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

`And has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll
(1832-1898)