yoyo, you missed out on having to learn Robert Browning's Home-Thoughts From Abroad as we did in school, written while he was living in Italy and missing an English Spring.

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

Another bosky word I picked up yesterday from a chap felling an over-large cherry cherry tree in our garden was brash meaning the twigs, small leafy branches etc that cannot be used for timber or fire wood . . . or wood turning

LOL.....I do know that poem, or at least the the first two lines.
If I'd bothered to continue with it I would have known " bole" as well as "chaffinch" !

Live and learn .

Another word new to me, as of today, is PLOTZ....meaning to faint from excitement.
I wonder exactly how that would be used.

Ex. I plotzed.....
I keeled over in a full plotz.....
I was plotzy with joy.......

This post was edited by yoyobon on Sun, Sep 7, 14 at 13:40

Veer, that poem reminds of a quote I saw recently: "It's easy to understand why the most beautiful poems about England in the spring were written by poets living in Italy at the time. "
Phillip Dunne, screenwriter for "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir"

Yoyobon, I always though "plotz" was NY yiddish slang for "to collapse with exhaustion". If you do heavy yard work on a hot day, you might plotz on your patio with a lemonade. Or, "After work, I plotzed on the couch and watched reruns of NCIS all evening."

We had a dog trainer that had a german shepherd that had been trained in German. The trainer would give the command "plotz", and the dog would lie down.

Merry,

Yes , my first response to seeing that word was that it was yiddish.
I sure like it and will not doubt find myself using it as much as I can...to the annoyance of many.

Another favorite is schlep .

Vee, the year my niece was at Imperial College and three of us mothers and our three daughters went to see her over her Easter break, I typed out that Browning poem on pretty stationery, rolled copies up diploma style, tied them with a red ribbon, and put one in each of the other five's Christmas stockings. We were all just a little excited about going!

I have been misusing "bole" as I was told it referred to a natural shallow hole in a tree trunk often used to make a nest for squirrels and birds. There is one on the tree I am looking at now on the lawn outside my front room window.
I wonder what that should be called if it isn't a bole?

Ann, perhaps it is just a 'hole'!
Carolyn, I hope you enjoyed the Spring-like weather that Browning was alluding too and that you heard the chaffinch . . . though I doubt I could recognise one. ;-(
Depending on when Easter falls, (anything from late March to late April) the weather here can vary between biting winds and snow to those beautiful clear Spring days so missed by the poet.
I remember when I lived in Ottawa, Spring lasted no more than two weeks rather than the two-three months I was used to.

Spring is here but you wouldn't know it. Gale force winds have taken off whole roofs, trees crashed on cars and the power is out for a lot of homes.
I have my heater cycle of the A/C on full as the wind howls eerily.
There should be wolves howling too but not in this country, thank goodness.

Google Translate has "plotz" as "collapse or be beside oneself with frustration, annoyance, or other strong emotion." That's how I've always understood it, as in, "If my mother knew I was using her best dinner set to feed the dog she would plotz".
And the "bole" is the trunk of a tree, not just a stump. A bole can be part of a still living tree.

Vee, actually it was early in April and it snowed on us one day, but the daffodils were blooming at Hampton Court.

I learned two unfamiliar words yesterday -
Firstly, slough as in the "slough of despond" in Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, meaning a muddy field or depression, although I believe it has different uses in USA. There is also a town in SE England named Slough, which can't really please the inhabitants.
Secondly, crepuscular which is associated with twilight, but which seems an ugly word to describe a lovely time of day. In Scotland we call the longer period of half light at the end of a day the gloaming. As we are farther North it lasts much longer than the rest of the UK, where darkness seems to descend quickly and I'm sure the difference would be quite noticeable too in Canada as opposed to the USA as Toronto and Glasgow are similar distances from the North Pole.

Bill

Bill,

Hmmm. My definition of crepuscular is that part of my upper arm that used to be muscular and is now "crepey" due to old age.

Bill, I remember summer night up in Unst (northern most island of the Shetlands) where it seldom became properly dark even during July.

I expect you know John Betjeman's 1937 poem

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

. . . and on it goes. JB really aimed his vitriol at all 'ribbon-development' as roads out of London swallowed up huge tracts of open countryside with new factories, box-like houses and suburban sprawl. He did apologies to the town later!

I'm with maxmom.

Just be glad that your elbows don't face forward !!

Veer,
I only came across the John Betjeman poem when I looked up usage of the word. However, his sentiments of modern town architecture in Britain still resonate, find support to this day and can be applied to many conurbations. Perhaps his apology was too early

Maxmom and Carolyn,
A convert to gymnasium exercise to tighten my flab, I think your definition of crepuscular is more in line with the sound of the word and better than its actual meaning, so I will reserve its use to describing "bat wings" in future.

Regards,
Bill

Lord love a duck !!
That image of underarm flappage brings back visions of my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Kresge.
She was one mean corpulent, crepuscular woman whose arms set up an amazing breeze when she would stand to write at the board !
I was equally terrified and fascinated by her size.
In my child's imagination I saw her arms as flapping and hanging like clothes on a line!

Beware the flesh that hangs and drapes
And causes us to envy apes
Who never seem to need to worry
About arm fat 'cause theirs is furry !!

This post was edited by yoyobon on Fri, Sep 12, 14 at 10:13

What a great rhyme, Yoyobon. One of Erma Bombeck's quips was that she looked down after waving goodby and her arm was still waving.

We refer to the "bat wings" as "granny flaps" :-)

There is an absolutely gorgeous apricot colored heirloom rose called 'Crepuscule', meaning Twilight. The accent is on the first syllable, which makes it rather melodious.

Okay, here goes my question. I am reading Raymond Chandler's1940 novel Farewell My Lovely. In one scene, private detective Philip Marlowe makes peace with a hardboiled cop who has been giving him a hard time. 'No hard feelings?' asks the cop, and Marlowe responds 'M.R.A.' A short while later, the cop also responds 'M.R.A.'

So, what does M.R.A. mean? Any ideas?

Rosefolly

Here is a link that might be useful: Crepuscule

Rosefolly, just a guess: thinking of the time of Chandler's writing, it could be "moving right along." That was something my father said when he considered the subject should be changed. It seems to fit the context of the passage you quoted.