Bon, maybe they couldn't figure out how to spell "discontinue." LOL More likely they used "ditch" due to a limited number of characters allowed in the headline.

Donna

I might make myself unpopular here but I deplore the discontinuing of the useful plastic grocery bag and no substitute being offered.

When there is so much plastic used elsewhere (I recently bought some wafer-thin cheese slices triple wrapped in plastic and my butterscotch pieces are individually wrapped too) what was the point as I have to buy plastic rubbish bags to put my waste in the community bins here as newspaper wrapping tends to get wet from peelings etc and breeds flies.

I agree about the short headlines. I used to write a newspaper column and had to keep the heading snappy or it got changed. I got that task as my husband was appointed editor of a small local rural paper and I was told that the editor's wife normally wrote the page for women!

Annpan, we run a local quarterly paper just circulated within the area and paid for by the Parish Council. We don't 'write' the articles but I have to do some heavy editing on the ones sent in from the various village organisation.

John does the clever stuff . . . the layout takes ages. One minuscule mistake and you can guarantee someone will pick it up and report back. ;-(

Type in Ducktown Echo for a fun-filled 10 minutes of reading.

Annpan, reusable cloth bags are available for about $1 in most supermarkets. I have a bunch of them which live in the boot of my car, ready for use when I shop. I also have three larger (and admittedly more expensive, but pretty and handy) nylon fabric bags which fold up into flat pouch and live in my handbag where they don’t take up much room but are always with me. The supermarkets generally have heavy plastic bags for a few cents if you need one and don’t have one. Personally I prefer the cloth bags as I’ve never had one get a hole poked in it from some sharp-edged item, causing it to essentially shred itself into oblivion and strew my groceries over a wide area; or to lose a handle and similarly dump my groceries everywhere.

It is a pain to have to buy bin bags when they used to be free, but a roll which lasts for months is about $3, so it’s not a major expense.

You can buy or make any kind of tote you need.....or even knit/crochet them from "yarn" made with strips of those plastic bags !

I have used reusable totes for years and would never consider having anything put into a plastic bag. I have also purchased a great shopping basket from BasketsofAfrica which ship free. The oval two-handled shopper basket holds quite a bit. ( found in the Ghana Bolla baskets )

Vee, I read your summer newsletter. It sounds like a lovely small town!

Donna

Thank you Donna. It is really only a small village but surprising what goes on here; some of it better left unreported!

South Australia has been a leader in getting rid of plastic bags. Like Colleen, I have a few nylon ones in my handbags and a bunch for the supermarket. I understand we need plastic bags for the rubbish, but most people brought home way more plastic bags from the supermarket than they used for rubbish. We only ever use one per week.

Our bookshop has also gone over to all paper bags.

There are trash /rubbish bags sold which are biodegradable and compostable. Some cities provide huge paper bags for trash pickup as well as part of their trash collection service.

We are required to use purchased paper bags for leaf pickup in the fall, or you can just put the leaves directly into trash cans, which is what I do. There was a notice at my grocery store recently that they will quit using plastic bags in 2025. Wonder why the rush?

Our leaf pickup is at the curbside and the leaves are left in piles which are sucked up by big trucks on certain days. It is forbidden to put any yard waste in the trash cans. Once a week there is also brush pickup , curbside....and especially after a storm. The recycling pickup is so particular they will sort through your can and leave any items not allowed by our country landfill.

The ban on plastic bags has come down from our state governor who tends to be very proactive about these issues. Many stores are stopping them ahead of the actual ban date.

We have three rubbish bins, one for general rubbish, one for recyclables and one for green waste. Originally this third one was only for garden waste, but now can include food scraps, although we don't use it for that as we compost our vegetable waste.

The general one is collected once a week, the recyclables once a fortnight and the green bin once a month.

We don't need specific leaf pick up as so few of our trees are deciduous.

I don't agree with leaf pickup because it is just as easy to simply put them in a pile at the far corner of your backyard and compost them. Most people are too lazy to do that so the town sucks them up and makes compost themselves.

There is a McDonald's commercial airing which says of their quarter -pounder :

" It's perfect. Made perfecter. "

And another featuring a pop artist or actress who, while giving her speech says

" It's really impor-int" ( insert cringing listener)

There are no standards.

Ah, Yoyobon:

But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

While watching the news tonight one of the major news channels ran a large red/white/blue banner on the screen which read that something was a " special ocassion"

OCASSION !

One of the local news websites had a story about the county mayor's executive order to stay at home, and in the first sentence they said it would go into "affect" on Thursday and in the very next sentence said it would be in "effect" until April 9.

I also saw a post on FB from a truck drivers union that said "the calvary is on the way" and had two other typos I can't remember.

Donna

Just looking through Am*zon for a book title and came across "A Tale of Two Twins"

Doesn't the use of twins makes the two rather unnecessary?!

LOL, Vee! Last night I saw a billboard for a Chinese restaurant that said they have “over 300+ items” on their buffet, which I thought was redundant, too.

Donna

Vee, I guess you could make a case for their being two people, each one being one of two different sets of twins :-)

And how many ways can you serve Chicken Meow Mein ??

And how fresh are those "over 300 items " ?

Nope.

yoyo, my Father who came from a 'hotel-trade' background (though not Chinese) always told us to beware those huge menus, the size of family bibles, as few of the items would be fresh and much of it stuff they wanted to get rid of, that probably had been lurking at the back of the 'fridge for several weeks.

Vee.......I had a friend whose husband used to take great pride in his 'refrigerator soup". He'd collect all the leftovers for a week then make soup from it.

It was horrible.

Little did he know.

yoyo, I can't remember which author wrote in her autobio' that every so often the cook would produce a pudding (what you in the US call a dessert) by collecting up all the sweet bits and pieces from the larder . . .pre 'fridge days . .. add a few ancient apples, over-ripe bananas etc heat it up and serve covered with a layer of bright yellow custard. The children loved it!

Regarding spoiled food and look away if you are squeamish...

My grandmother, who was working in a Victorian household, was given some of a leftover meat dish by the cook. It was very tasty.

One day she was in the pantry and saw what looked like a large skinned rabbit hanging upside down to drain off the blood and it was covered in maggots. She asked the cook about it and was told that it was the ingredient for Jugged Hare, the dish which she had eaten once and enjoyed.

Poor grandmother said she dashed out and lost her breakfast!

I have checked for recipes but none have mentioned letting the hare ripen.

Annpan, I grew up in the country and as my father was friendly with many local farmers we would often receive game from the local 'shoots'. Pheasant, partridge, venison and hare were always hung for a week or so. But as they were only hunted during the winter there were no flies around . . . thank goodness.

I now live in another rural area where the local landowner breeds pheasants . . . thousands of them, as his 'shoot' brings in much needed £££'s. The often very wealthy clientele usually have no interest in taking what they have 'bagged' back home to their wives to be cooked, so we have been in receipt of many a brace of pheasants, which we find on the backdoor step. Plucking and drawing them is a long messy business but we do get many low-fat healthy meals a a result.

Vee, I don't recall ever eating game. As my grandfather worked at the Smithfield meat market, I ate all kinds of offal when I lived with him and enjoyed it without knowing what it was. My grandmother did a lovely stuffed and baked beef heart!

We can buy kangaroo at the supermarket and crocodile is eaten in the North but I have the usual beef, lamb and pork. These days it is done by the supermarket hot roast department and saves me the trouble!

Annpan, the only 'hot' meat from our supermarket deli is roast chicken and all the deli counters have now closed because of C19

I have a thing about crocodile rather like people who don't like snakes or spiders . . .Both lamb and beef have become very expensive over here but pork is much cheaper.

Do you remember the old saying "Only eat pork when there is an R in the month"?

Vee, that saying is for not eating oysters during months with an R here in the U.S.

I grew up in the country, and my dad liked to hunt. We used to eat rabbit and squirrel during hunting season. Before deer were plentiful, there was no season for hunting them, but Daddy saw one once and couldn't resist taking a shot--and he killed it. He was afraid of a large fine by the game warden, but he was so proud of his kill that he couldn't resist telling all the men at the general store about it. No one told on him, he buried the head and antlers and dressed it out, and we ate the venison. My mother didn't know how to cook it and just prepared it like beef, but it had such a strong flavor that we didn't like it much.

Carolyn, over here rabbits and squirrel are considered vermin and although I have never heard of anyone eating squirrel . .. often called 'tree-rats' , if you caught a grey one the tail was worth a shilling . . . rabbit was popular among large country families until the myxomatosis outbreak of the '50's.

Hunting usually called shooting here, unlike the US, is considered a rich man's sport. Strictly organised and overseen by game-keepers who work for owners of large estates; think of those grouse moors in Scotland.

Fox hunting has become a contentious issue and was banned by the Blair Govt some years ago leading to a widespread increase in the fox population. Those of us who keep hens are not great friends of Reynard!

One of my favourite re-read books is "Picking Up" by Kate Fenton. A separated city wife is lent a spaniel for company at her country cottage.

Dora turns out to be a trained gun dog.

The description of the shooting at the nearby estate in Yorkshire is very amusing as dog teaches owner, who doesn't know a grouse from a canary to start with but needs both the wages and the cheerful company of other owners of gun dogs who work as picker ups of the shot birds.

Many years ago a man I was dating who liked to hunt served me some venison he had caught. I didn't like it much. Since then I've had venison several times in New Zealand, and again here in fine restaurants, but I don't know how to cook it. The version I've eaten in restaurants is delicious.

Rose, they do something to the venison to take away the gamy taste, but I don't know what it is. I have eaten it a few times in later life when it was pretty good. We are overrun with deer now. I even saw a big stag walking majestically across my back yard early one morning here in suburbia, and one of my brothers once found an abandoned baby fawn on his farm. He took it home and cared for it in his barn for awhile, but when it got older it ran away into the woods.

Venison needs to be hung (somewhere fly-proof!) for a week or so, then it can be cooked in a similar way to beef. It is now considered a healthy and therefore 'fashionable' meat choice.

Re fawns. Apparently the mother/doe often leaves the young in a quiet spot while she grazes. Sometimes walkers/hikers find these fawns and think they have been abandoned. It is better to leave the fawn without touching/handling it and the mother will soon return to it.

Of course we humans often have a Bambi moment at such times!

Venison Recipes

This from a whitetail deer info site:

When a fawn is born it is odorless so that predators are not attracted to its location. In fact the mother doe will stay away from the fawn for a few days so that her scent does not rub off on the fawn or attract predators to the area where the fawn is hiding while gaining strength.

When a fawn detects danger it will remain perfectly still. Fawns that live past the first week have a good chance of surviving to adulthood.

Mom to the Rescue

Fawns normally don't make any noises except for occasional bleating when in distress. When the fawn bleats and the doe is unable to see the fawn, she will come running to the fawn's rescue. A doe and her fawns live as a family group until the fawns are weaned.

Thanks for the above yoyo.

Just heard this on the radio by a female reporter on the 'unlocking' of businesses in Spain "I am stood outside a department store in Alicante but speaking personally for myself I will not be going shopping soon."

For Heaven's sake . . and this is from the BBC!

Vee, I hear a whirring sound! It is Reith spinning in his grave...

Vee......there is so much wrong with that statement, unless I am unaccustomed to British vernacular. For instance, the first five words !

Vee, have you heard the sociolinguists' argument about the changes in grammatical structure and pronunciations of English being driven primarily by young middle-class women? Apparently this is thought to be a phenomenon starting in the latter part of the twentieth century and gaining momentum in the twenty-first century as women have become omnipresent in media -- particularly in the 'sound' media.

I can't remember where I first heard or read of this idea. I have been able to find only one reference to it, so far. That was in David Crystal's The Stories of English (pub. 2004). I would like to know more.

~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~

Re the 'I am stood' and 'I was sat' constructions, I am tempted to get snarky and ask: Who stood you outside . . .? or Who sat you at the table . . .? As if someone physically picked you up and placed you there!

As for personally for myself: It is a common redundancy nowadays; isn't it?

I don't/didn't know about young females inadvertently altering our patterns of speech, although when I hear them being interviewed on the radio with their rising inflections and their often brainless remarks (can you tell I'm getting really old?) I can see what the sociolinguists * mean. Thank goodness the BBC still have older females who speak 'the Queen's English' with clear diction and proper pronunciation.

Apparently the 'I am stood' 'He was sat' . . . were originally Northern uses, but now everyone seems to flatten their 'a's' and talk as though they have just come off a long shift at the cotton mill. rather than a bar stool in a bistro in Sloane Square, I think it is a 'trend' that will continue.

* I have found a new word!

LOL.......good point Ann !

I'm reading A Curious Beginning and although the author is a really good writer, i am noticing that she loves to overuse the image /phrase " he opened his mouth , then snapped it closed " I'm half way through the book and I think she's used it at least half a dozen times ! Isn't it odd how certain phrases catch a reader's attention then that's all they notice .

Some time ago I read a book, who's name I can't remember, where the author seemed to want to make the point that eating a hearty breakfast was a bad idea. She kept bringing up the topic starting with a child getting up in the morning and being offered eggs, bacon etc by some well-meaning adult, but knowing he should refuse in favour of healthy but tasteless 'whole food' cereal or green-slime juice. "My Mother wouldn't want me to eat cooked food like that."

'Over-egging' the point . . or should that be 'under-egging'?

Bon, Faye Kellerman uses the phrase “blew out air” a lot. Why not just say he or she sighed? She also tells you what a character is wearing when they enter a scene. I could see doing that occasionally if it fits with the story, but not every time a detective arrives, especially since it’s just variations of the same thing.

Donna

It reminds me of those customer service calls I make and while the person is attempting to help me she finds it necessary to explain all the frustrations of her job and of using whatever resources to solve the problem.

I do not need to hear this........just get me an answer.

I won't tell you all about the problems of my job if you promise to afford me the same courtesy !

Annpan, some years ago at a book club meeting one of the members spoke of a letter which she had written for her children to read “if I die”. I told her there was no “if” about it. And I got a laugh from students recently when I remarked (as I was removing hot plates with burning chocolate from a failed classroom experiment and airing the room to get rid of the smoke it produced) to a student who wailed, “We’re going to die”, “Well, yes, you will, but not today.”

I recall reading a self-published autobiography which was driving me nuts because _every single anecdote_ ended with the phrase, something like “such is the way things go”. I wanted to scream every time I read it. About halfway through the book I did.

Why do so many British people refer to things being “on the floor” when it’s outside, and there is no floor. It’s the _ground_, people.

Colleen, in some places in the American South it is apparently common to say 'in the floor'. That sounds weird to me.

A very commonly overused phrase is 'he let out the breath he didn't realise he was holding'.

I had to replay a local tv ad several times to be sure I heard what I thought I heard !

Two young women were promoting a community event which began with this title :

Tioga County Allies for Fair Business Practices..........and.......the woman pronounced " allies " as " alice".

Seriously.

Do they practice these spots before filming them ? And what is more troublesome is that she didn't recognize that word. I am going to say she's a not a book reader.

Back to A Curious Beginning......here's an expression the writer uses frequently and is one I have never seen before :

" I waved an airy hand....."

And it's the kind of expression that once used, it becomes annoying each time it reappears. Sort of like eating one double chocolate fudge cupcake. Eat just one and it is delicious, but two or three more make you feel off your feed.