Heortophobia - fear of holidays

Last summer we went to Nelson and Blenheim with my parents, Granny and Grandpa. I refound the notes I made:

FRI - Ferry (2hrs late), H & K peered in campavan, K sat on [a] Harley, H sick in night

SAT - R & D to Market, H & K to playground & river

SUN - Tahunanui Beach - H & K jumped in waves

MON - R & D & H & K to wee zoo - H [liked the] mice & rabbits ([in] large containers), K [liked the] monkeys

TUE - R & D to Havelock, H & K fed ducks in Queens Garden

WED - Long drive to Blenheim, lots of stops, Japanese Garden, Potty in Rest Area, Pelorus Bridge, Diggers, H & K swim

THU - R sick, H & K to playground with G & G

FRI - to Choc Factory & Museum, K sick lots

SAT - R & D to Wedding (D feeling unwell)

SUN - Ferry home, K sick pm

I remember it as the holiday of being vomitted on.

Poxy lady*

I have chicken pox. I am achey and sweaty. I don't have many pustules at the moment, long may it stay that way. At least pustule is a wonderful word.

*I'm not a lady but I couldn't resist this title.

Tutuing with unexpected penguins

I just found out about Google Scholar which is a very nifty thing and so I was tutuing* about with it and searched for "penguin" and came out with First Measurement of the Rate for the Inclusive Radiative Penguin Decay b→sγ which made me curious about what kind of penguin they were on about.

The answer is that there is a kind of feynman diagram for performing calculations in quantum field theory called a penguin diagram. This lovely picture from Wikipedia shows why:



For more information about feynman diagrams and this picture in its natural habitat check out this link.

* tutu is a verb meaning to fiddle or play about with something which I first encountered in Whangarei. I have only met it from New Zealand English speakers from Hamilton and northwards although it is spreading south. It is mentioned on this New Zealand English site and there are a couple of other examples of it being used here.

As a Wellingtonian I am slightly embarassed that a word which might be associated with Auckland has colonised my vocabulary but I feel the word's derivation from the Maori for trouble-maker makes up for that.

A clowder of cats

Clowder is the collective noun for cats.

The thing that fascinates me is that this is such a rare word. A pack of dogs, a herd of cows, a flock of birds, a swarm of bees and a school of fish are all deeply familiar. I'd confidently talk about a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese or a pod of dolphins (even though AskOxford.com thinks that the correct term is a school of dolphins). I even know the words for a murder of crows, a leap of leopards and a parliment of owls.

So why not a clowder of cats?

Even though cats are not as social as dogs and humans, if it was a common word - like pack for dogs, I'd use it from time to time. I'd say "Does N still have a whole clowder of cats?", "Today the local clowder of cats was practicing staring" and "We got Andy from the SPCA. We went in and look at the clowder of cats in the cat room and then sat in the middle of the room talking about whether we could leave without choosing one (as none seemed quite right) when Andy jumped on D's knee and chose us". I'd talk about the clowder of cats that Slinky Malinki hangs out with when I read Slinky Malinki Catflaps aloud.

But instead I am left pondering the oddities of English.