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G som i Glee - Det engelska uttrycket glee betyder [uppsluppen] glädje eller munterhet. Det är också en trestämmig sällskapsvisa för oackompanjerade mansröster, vanlig i Storbritannien mellan mitten av 1600-talet och mitten av 1800-talet. Källa: NE
Introduction to the Songs of Innocence, by William Blake (1757-1827). First printed in 1789.
Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child.
And he laughing said to me.
Pipe a song about a Lamb;
So I piped with merry chear,
Piper pipe that song again—
So I piped, he wept to hear.
Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
Sing thy songs of happy chear,
So I sung the same again
While he wept with joy to hear
Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read—
So he vanish'd from my sight.
And I pluck'd a hollow reed.
And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear
***
H som i Halloween - Ordet är en förkortning av det skotska uttrycket Allhallow-even "Eve of All Saints, last night of October" som har sitt ursprung i mitten av 1500-talet. Den sista oktober avslutade året i den gamla keltiska kalendern. Begreppet Halloween har använts sedan 1745.
Åtskilliga av den äldre tidens traditioner har levt vidare även efter kristnandet och övertogs så småningom av de invandrande germanfolken. Med tiden förvandlades de till barnupptåg, och dit hör det tiggeri som utövas vid Halloween. Källor: NE och Etymology Online
Halloween Party, by Kenn Nesbitt (f. 1962)
(From When the teacher isn't looking : and other funny school poems. Minnetonka, MN : Meadowbrook Press ; New York : Distributed by Simon & Schuster, 2005.)
We’re having a Halloween party at school.
I’m dressed up like Dracula. Man, I look cool!
I dyed my hair black, and I cut off my bangs.
I’m wearing a cape and some fake plastic fangs.
I put on some makeup to paint my face white,
like creatures that only come out in the night.
My fingernails, too, are all pointed and red.
I look like I’m recently back from the dead.
My mom drops me off, and I run into school
and suddenly feel like the world’s biggest fool.
The other kids stare like I’m some kind of freak—
the Halloween party is not till next week.
***
I som i Indeed - Ordet kan översättas med verkligen, faktiskt eller minsann. Det kan användas i betydelsen visserligen eller förvisso. Det förekommer också som svar på frågor och kan då betyda 'ja, visst' eller 'jaså?'.
Ordet har funnits sedan tidigt 1300-tal, in dede, "in fact, in truth". Det blev ett sammansatt ord under 1600-talet. Att använda ordet som ett uttryck för förvåning eller avsky har man gjort sedan 1834. Källor: NE och Etymology Online
This is indeed India, by Mark Twain (1835-1910)
(From Following the Equator, 1897.)
“the land of dreams and romance,
of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty,
of splendor and rags,
of palaces and hovels,
of famine and pestilence,
of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps,
of tigers and elephants,
the cobra and the jungle,
the country of a thousand nations and a hundred tongues,
of a thousand religions and two million gods,
cradle of the human race,
birthplace of human speech,
mother of history, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of tradition,
whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities
of the rest of the nations—
the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free,
the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.”
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