Discrete apartments in Ivanhoe

Yesterday must have been my day for stopping in my tracks when I saw horrible English on real estate advertisements. I've already posted about one in Heidelberg.

Here's a photo of a sign on a new development in the Ivanhoe shopping strip:

And a closeup so you can read some of it:

The residences will be discretely set behind a facade.

The Australian Macquarie Dictionary defines discrete as

adjective 1. detached from others; separate; distinct               2. consisting of or characterised by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous.

Given that it's a multi-storey development, it's amusing to visualise a series of disconnected residences. Sounds as if it will have to defy gravity. Maybe a development for the twenty-second century?

Did the writer perhaps mean the development will be discreetly set behind a facade of shops at ground level?

this is NOT English

Here's a sign in Heidelberg. The terrible prose doesn't fill the reader with confidence that the development will be of a high quality.

If you're going to spend money on a fancy sign, why not pay someone to edit your prose?

organic or pretend organic?

Have a look at these bags of planting mix. Organic or just pretending to be organic?

My understanding of quotation marks around a noun means to be wary of the genuineness of the thing named. It implies irony in the use of the marked word.

Cambridge Dictionaries Online says:

 We also use single quotation marks to draw attention to a word. We can use quotation marks in this way when we want to question the exact meaning of the word:
I am very disappointed by his 'apology'. I don't think he means it.  

NEW 'WAR' OVER NORTH SEA FISHING PLANS

This Washington State University site on American usage discusses the same sort of thing I've noticed on the bag of planting mix:

There are many ways to go wrong with quotation marks. They are often used ironically: 

She ran around with a bunch of "intellectuals." 

The quotation marks around "intellectuals" indicate that the writer believes that these are in fact so-called intellectuals, not really intellectuals at all. The ironic use of quotation marks is very much overdone, and is usually a sign of laziness indicating that the writer has not bothered to find the precise word or expression necessary.  

Advertisers unfortunately tend to use quotation marks merely for emphasis: 

"FRESH" TOMATOES

59 CENTS A POUND 

The influence of the more common ironic usage tends to make the reader question whether these tomatoes are really fresh. Underlining, bold lettering, all caps - there are several less ambiguous ways to emphasise words than placing them between quotation marks. 

I managed to overcome my initial reaction to this strange punctuation, and bought the product to plant my nice new Jonathan apple in enriched soil.

beautys for sale

I did a double-take when I saw this sign outside a florist shop:

I thought they couldn't spell the plural form of beauty. When I walked on, and saw the other side of the sign, I smiled. It seemed the writer had hedged her bets. This time she'd added an apostrophe.

We had a discussion around the kitchen table that afternoon - as you do. I thought the plural of the trade name, Winter Beauty could be legitimately spelled as 'Beautys'. (BTW, my spell checker doesn't agree with me, but I've overruled it.) But the rest of the family disagreed.

Maybe if she'd spelled it with a capital letter - Beautys - I could have convinced my family. On the other hand, the label didn't use capitals.

And she spelled hellebore wrong, anyway.

runcible gardening

For no known reason, on Friday I was thinking about runcible spoons, as I pottered in the garden. I thought I remembered that the word runcible was a nonsense invention by Edward Lear. I had been on a 'weed walk' led by Adam Grubb, and had bought a copy of his  book The Weed Forager's Handbook, but I don't see why that should have got me musing about runcible spoons.

Anyway...today I was browsing Adam's book and came to the page about Sow Thistles. We have lots of this weed in our garden, so I thought I'd also read about the plant in a book I bought decades ago, Weeds of Forests, Roadsides and Gardens. I love comparing information, because it seems to help knowledge 'stick' in my head.

Since I don't have a background education in botany, I find the text in this latter book hard to understand. But when I read that the leaves of Sonchus oleraceus (sow thistle) are thin and runcinate, my attention sharpened.

So what, I asked myself, does runcinate mean? The Free Dictionary defines it as:

a leaf having incised margins with the lobes or teeth curved toward the base; as a dandelion leaf.

Now I wondered whether Lear's made-up word might have had some connection, even if subconscious on his part, with this botanical term. Was Lear a botanist? No. But he did illustrate natural history books, so it's possible he was familiar with the term runcinate.

The Guardian has a collection of suggested origins for the word that are much more likely than mine, but why shouldn't I, too, have fun imagining the mind of Edward Lear?

I've written about weeds previously. To me there's no such thing as a weed. They're just plants. Oh, maybe I'd make an exception for moth plants. I really don't like them. No, I shouldn't do that. They're just trying to make a living, like everything else in my garden.

How do species relate to spices?

I find it interesting when I discover that similar-sounding words that seem to have unrelated meanings actually are related etymologically.

This week, when I was reading my newly purchased book, Herbs and Spices; the Cook's Reference, by Jill Norman, I discovered the relationship between the words specie, spice and species.

On page 9 she writes this about the word spices:

Again our word derives from Latin, where species meant specific kind but, in later use, goods or merchandise - spices certainly being an important commodity even at the time of the Romans.

This made me wonder about the expression payment in specie. I didn't know what it means, but I've read it in historical novels.

Dictionary.com says of the word specie:

noun

1.

coined money; coin.

Idioms

2.

in specie,

1. in the same kind.
2. (of money) in coin.
3. in a similar manner; in kind:
   Such treachery should be repaid in specie.
4. Law. in the identical shape, form, etc., as specified.

Collins English dictionary gives the origin of the phrase in specie as:
C16: from the Latin phrase in speciē in kind
Ref: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/specie

hoping to be equanimous after learning about meditation

It's a strange thing, as an adult with a fairly extensive vocabulary, to use a new word  before being quite certain you know how to spell it.

I've recently done an eight-week course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which was just the thing I needed to get some sort of handle on life, and also attended a screening of The Connection film. Somewhere in all this activity I heard that I should approach life in an equanimous manner.

I looked it up just now, and found I had the right idea about what it means and how to write it. There are many definitions of it on the internet, but the one that strikes me as the closest in meaning to how it was used in the meditation lessons was on Wikipedia - not usually my reference of choice - defining the related noun, equanimity.

Equanimity (Latin: æquanimitas having an even mind; aequus even animus mind/soul) is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies.

The article refers to many of the streams from which the current MBSR has drawn its ideas:
 Hinduism
Yoga
Stoicism
Buddhism
Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Baha'i Faith

The Wikipedia article points across to Wiktionary for the related adjective, equanimous.

Attempting to face the good moments and the 'bad' moments in a spirit of acceptance is an empowering strategy, especially in the face of all the awfulness in the media. I hope I can continue to develop my strength in this area.