Fifty Shades of Black (14 page)

 

 

Everything New Is Old Again

I
f we could time travel back and stand at the head of Salt Spring's main harbour, around the year 1916, we'd be looking at the future site of the town of Ganges. Already there's a fair clustering of folks here: maybe a hundred settlers of European extraction; some Kanakas from the Hawaiian Islands; a few black refugees from the slave states to the south; and some been-here-forever Cowichan people shaking their heads and wondering where all the funny-looking strangers came from.

And those lights up there on the hill—that would be Harbour House, soon to become one of Salt Spring's fanciest hostelries. In 1916 it's just a guest house but eventually it will boast two of the best tennis courts in Canada, a salt-water swimming pool and on Sunday afternoons, parasols, white dresses and high tea on the front lawn. All this before the halfway mark of the last century. Not just a high-toned inn—a farm to boot. As a matter of fact Harbour House started out as a farm run by Fred Crofton, an Irish immigrant. He bought one hundred uncleared acres in 1904 and put most of it into cultivation. That's not all Fred and his wife, Nona, cultivated. By the 1930s the place was overrun by the seven Ds. Fred and Nona had a thing about the fourth letter of the alphabet and it showed in the names of their kids: Desmond, Dermot, Donovan, Dulcie, Doreen, Denise and Diana.

And what a farm those Croftons ran. They grew fruits and vegetables and raised cattle, swine and poultry. More than enough to supply the hotel and a good bit of the populace.

And then, sometime around the mid-1950s, something happened. The world changed. Thanks to refrigeration and storage and cheap transportation, it became—illogically—cheaper to import food from the Okanagan, Washington and California than it was to grow it locally. Bit by bit Harbour House sold off its livestock and poultry.

Wild broom crept into the wheat fields and vegetable patches. The Harbour House farm went fallow. It stayed that way for more than half a century.

I don't know if there was any direct connection but Harbour House itself kind of went fallow too. It actually burned down a couple of times, and during one of its resurrections back in the '60s and '70s it got a little . . . rough around the edges. As a local observer put it: Harbour House went from high tea to rock 'n' roll. Somebody else said, back then if it was Saturday night and you were looking for a good fight, Harbour House was the place to be.

Well, the good news? Harbour House—the genteel version—is back. The better news? So is the farm. Right behind the hotel—and visitors are welcome to stroll through it—you'll find the new/old Harbour House farm. They've got greenhouses and outdoor raised beds, grain fields, beehives for honey and bigleaf maple trees for syrup—seventeen acres, all organic. And all patrolled by hot and cold running goats. Those goats aren't for meat or milk—they get a free ride because they actually eat broom, blackberry vines and thistles.

Belinda Schroeder is the person in charge of the Harbour House farm. She's an organic purist who'd sooner roll naked in a patch of stinging nettle than allow an ounce of herbicide or pesticide on her land. The food she grows there is as pure as food gets. And her primary customers? Guests at the Harbour House Hotel. She says she has no problem delivering thirty pounds of potatoes a day, plus all the fruits and vegetables the hotel can use.

So, in an age of financial instability, economic uncertainty and agricultural dubiousness, a smidgen of good news. A small hotel on a small island that was food self-sufficient nearly a hundred years ago is on its way to being self-sufficient again. The Crofton family doesn't own it anymore, but Jack Woodward, who took it over about five years ago, said at the time, “I think what Salt Spring needs is some continuity.”

I'd say Salt Spring's got some. And I'm sure that Fred and Nona Crofton, not to mention Desmond, Dermot, Donovan, Dulcie, Doreen, Denise and Diana—would be pleased.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part Five

Closed Captioned
for the Language Impaired

 

 

 

Parlez-Vous “Cop”?

I
f there's one thing that separates police officers from the rest of us—aside from the fact that he or she wears a gun and can seriously interfere with the way the rest of your day plays out—it's the way they talk. Particularly when they talk for publication. If, for instance, you or I came across a burglary in progress, we would relate the story something like, “Yeah, I was coming home from lunch when I saw this drunk smash through the glass door at the jewellery shop. The cops came along, he tried to run, they tackled him, cuffed him and read him his rights.”

But the official description would be more like, “The suspect was observed entering the aforementioned premises at or about 1300 hours Greenwich Mean Time. Subject was observed to be in possession of a metal lever-like device, which was used to effect entry and subsequently brandished in a threatening manner. Officers on the scene exited the patrol vehicle and apprehended the perpetrator in order to neutralize the situation and secure the premises . . .” etcetera, etcetera.

It's classic cop-speak. I don't know why they do it, but it's weird and sometimes it's next to unintelligible. And I'm glad to see that some of our local cops are actually swimming against the Blue Tide. Cop reports with a dash of wit in them—who'da thunk it?

It's coming out of the Saanich Police Department on Vancouver Island in the form of otherwise boring and forgettable crime bulletins. Sergeant Dean Janzen is the public information officer for the Saanich department, and his motive, aside from making a dull chore more interesting, is pretty straightforward. “If you inject a little humour in police reports, you stand a far better chance of the message being carried further.”

What kind of messages? Well, there's the case of the Chip Bandits. A woman in Victoria was awakened by her growling Chihuahua (hey, would I make this up?), which alerted her to the fact that there were prowlers in her attached garage. The police came, investigated and asked what if anything was missing. “My barbecue-flavoured chips,” harrumphed the woman. A brief search of the neighbourhood turned up a pair of skunk-drunk women sprawled on a lawn munching on—uh-huh! Book 'em, Danno—a bag of barbecue-flavoured chips. The official police report concludes: “It appears the effervescent chips seen shimmering in the moonlight were too yummy to pass up when you have the munchies.” Unquote.

Sometimes the titles of the police reports alone sound like episodes of a sitcom in progress. “A Mister Bean Style Robbery,” reads one; “The Curious Case of the Constantly Stolen Truck,” reads another. And my overall favourite: the report regarding a “man with a gun” incident that the Saanich Emergency Task Force responded to a few weeks back. No shots were fired. No blood was shed. The suspect had in fact a curling iron in his pants. The Saanich police report carried the deadpan heading “Dangerous Hair Styling Incident.”

Some old-school law enforcement types no doubt frown upon Sergeant Janzen and his droll approach to crime reporting, but I think it's a breath of fresh air. And I look forward to his assessment of the recent theft of two Porta Potties that used to sit in the Saanich Police Department parking lot. I imagine it will read, “Thieves broke into the local police compound and stole two toilets. Police say they have nothing to go on.”

It's all right, officer. I'll come quietly.

 

 

English as She Is Spoke

If the English language made any sense “lackadaisical” would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.

—Doug Larson

B
ut it doesn't—make any sense, I mean. Why, for instance, would any decent tongue adorn itself with contronyms? These are words that, depending on context, can mean the exact opposite of what they seem to mean. Thus, we have the word “cleave,” which can mean to stick together or to rend asunder. We have “fast,” which can mean speedy—or utterly immobile. A trip to Gay Paree is not the same as a trip over a loose shoelace. The alarm on your bedside clock goes off by going on. A pyromaniac/author could put out a fire—or put out a new book (
Fifty Shades of Black
, D&M, 256 pages).

And if that author was a sado-masochistic opportunist he could flog himself—or his book (Fifty Shades of Black, D&M, 256 pages).

Don't panic—I'm about to wind up this contronym tangent I'm on. But do I mean wind up as in “bring to an end”—or wind up as with a baseball pitch?

Forget contronyms, what about verbing? Your English teacher might call it “the practice of denominalizing—turning nouns into verbs.” I call it a viral plague. Much of it is computer-based. “Blog” is a word that isn't even old enough to vote—it's derived from “web log” and has led to bloggers, blogging, even blogosphere. Hideous words all, but like warts on a toad, with us for the duration. Likewise “google,” formerly a noun (google it, if you don't believe me); also xerox, fax and text.

There's nothing wrong with turning nouns into verbs; it goes on all the time. One can dress in a dress, dream a dream and dance a dance, but where do you draw the line?

For me, it's at Facebook. I won't join the social phenomenon because I cringe at the thought of “friending” anyone. It just sounds creepy and vaguely pedophilic. And unfriending????? Puh-leeeze.

I am much more amenable to the idea of paraprosdokians. A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected. The best one I ever heard sprang from the lips of John Wilkes, an English politician who was lambasted by the Earl of Sandwich a couple of centuries ago. The earl roared at him in the House of Commons, “I do not know, sir, if you will die on the gallows or of the pox” (i.e., of syphilis). Quick as a flash Wilkes stood up and purred, “That depends, my Lord, on whether I embrace your Lordship's principles, or your mistress.”

Paraprosdokians don't have to be that exquisitely elaborate. Dorothy Parker was a master (mistress?) of the genre. She once sniffed, “I know a woman who speaks eighteen languages and can't say ‘No' in any of them.” Another time: “I require only three things of a man: he must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.”

But the master of paraprosdokians? Sir Winston, of course. Churchill once explained his facility with English. It sprang, he said, from his poor scholarship. Other students were taught Latin and Greek but because he was considered “slow” he was taught only English. “As I remained [in third year] three times as long as anyone else, I had three times as much of it. I learned it thoroughly. Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the English sentence—which is a noble thing.”

It certainly was when filtered through the Churchillian vocal cords.

Such as the occasion when a moustachioed young Winston was confronted by an angry female voter. “Young man,” she sniffed, “I care for neither your politics nor your moustache.”

“Madam,” responded Churchill, “you are unlikely to come into contact with either.”

 

 

S'up with English? LOL!

Perhaps of all the creations of man, language is the most astonishing.

—Lytton Strachey

W
hat do you suppose man's first word was? Not much more than a grunt, I reckon—post-prandial or post-coital most likely, acknowledging a full belly or satisfying sex. What a wonder that we could evolve from such a scattering of glottal oinks and ughs to a world that, according to the Ethnologue (
www.ethnologue.com
), currently features 6,912 tongues spoken by somebody somewhere on the earth's surface. Eighty-six of those languages are spoken here in Canada. They range from the Afrikaans of South African immigrants to
X
aad Kil of our longest-standing citizens on Haida Gwaii.

And of course, there's English. About 375 million earthlings speak it as their first language but its true power is revealed in those who claim it as linguistic backup. Non-native English speakers outnumber the rest of us by about three to one. Which country do you think has the most people who speak or understand English? Great Britain? The US?

Nope—it's India. Not surprising when you realize that English is the tongue of choice in international diplomacy, medicine, communications, science, aviation and show biz.

And if you're a native English speaker as I am, let us go down on our knees together and thank providence for our lucky birthright, because learning to speak English as a second language must be a certifiable nightmare.

Are you kidding? A language in which you fill in a form by filling it out? Your house burns up as it burns down? Wristwatches run but time flies? You tell people you couldn't care less by saying, “I could care less”?

We've got ourselves a language that says it's perfectly permissible to drive on a parkway but park in a driveway. Our alarm clocks go off by going on, when the stars come out we can see them, but when the lights go out we can't see anything.

English is also the queen of oxymorons. It permits us to watch “awfully good” “half-naked” “light-heavyweights” pummel each other in rings that are square.

You are allowed, in English, to put your best foot forward while keeping your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder to the wheel, your eye on the ball and your tongue in cheek behind your stiff upper lip.

Not to mention knuckling down with your nose in the air, your chin up and your feet on the ground while head over heels.

Unless, of course, you don't have the stomach for it.

The adjectival form of “quiz” is quizzical.

So the adjectival form of “test” would be . . . ?

And what's with the word “haemorrhoid”?

Surely that should be “asteroid.”

English is a language designed to torment and befuddle. Imagine trying to teach a non-English speaker how to pronounce “ough.”

It's an “oo” sound, of course—as in “through.”

Or is it an “uff” sound—as in “tough”?

Or an “ow” sound—as in “plough”?

That's only the beginning. Here's a phrase we can all be proud of: Boughs brought nought through—thought enough?

And don't forget the “up” sound of “hiccough.”

It may be slight consolation that at least one expert thinks traditional spelling—indeed, pretty well all spelling—is on the way out, thanks to the Internet. David Crystal, a linguistics professor at the University of Wales, points out that for the first time in many hundreds of years, much of the printed word is being distributed without benefit of editors or proofreaders. Bloggers blog, texters text and, dare I say, twits tweet—all without any Higher Power correcting or rewriting their efforts. Short forms abound. “By the way” becomes BTW; IMHO stands in for “in my humble opinion.”

Professor Crystal claims to be unfazed by this development. “The vast majority of spelling rules in English are irrelevant,” says the prof breezily.

All I can say is: WTF? Itz all 2 depressing 4 me.

C U L8TR.