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ladyofastolatLast night, while I was driving home from dancing, a very exuberant large band was performing American folk classics. I turned the volume up. My toe started tapping. "It's like an American version of Bellowhead!" I thought in delight. I had enormous fun for the whole drive home, and as soon as I got in, I rushed to find out who was playing. I'd never expected it to be Bruce Springsteen. We Shall Overcome: the Seeger sessions has gone straight onto my Amazon wishlist. Even the videos on Youtube look like Bellowhead, complete with the packed stage of instrumentalists having fun, and the massed ranks of brass instruments.
re. Bellowhead: after much dithering, we've decided to go to their New Year event. We almost booked it in October, after they mentioned it at their Frome concert, but tickets were expensive, and hotels were even more so, so we decided not to. However, I realised that I was reluctant to make any other New Year plans because, deep down, I felt that Bellowhead was the only way to go. It's an evening in the South Bank Centre in London, with a ceilidh, shanties and several Bellowhead performances, and then a front row view of the New Year fireworks on Central London. I'm really looking forward to it. :-)
And where does swearing come in? Well, not at all, except that I was amused today to see in a book review that it had "mild strong language." Yes, I know what it meant, but I just like the idea of something being simultaneously mild and strong. I do like the way that people often use circumlocutions or euphemisms even just to talk about swearing. "Strong language": is that related to strong verbs? "This story contains some language," I've seen on many a fanfic introduction; presumably all the other fanfics were done in interpretative dance. "This contains offensive language", but offensive to whom? (Some people would be far more offended by a misplaced apostrophe than by a "bloody.") "Four letter words": so that's why my work internet filter once blocked a page because it contained the word "toad."* And then there's the word "swearing" itself...
* Entirely true. Apparently.
re. Bellowhead: after much dithering, we've decided to go to their New Year event. We almost booked it in October, after they mentioned it at their Frome concert, but tickets were expensive, and hotels were even more so, so we decided not to. However, I realised that I was reluctant to make any other New Year plans because, deep down, I felt that Bellowhead was the only way to go. It's an evening in the South Bank Centre in London, with a ceilidh, shanties and several Bellowhead performances, and then a front row view of the New Year fireworks on Central London. I'm really looking forward to it. :-)
And where does swearing come in? Well, not at all, except that I was amused today to see in a book review that it had "mild strong language." Yes, I know what it meant, but I just like the idea of something being simultaneously mild and strong. I do like the way that people often use circumlocutions or euphemisms even just to talk about swearing. "Strong language": is that related to strong verbs? "This story contains some language," I've seen on many a fanfic introduction; presumably all the other fanfics were done in interpretative dance. "This contains offensive language", but offensive to whom? (Some people would be far more offended by a misplaced apostrophe than by a "bloody.") "Four letter words": so that's why my work internet filter once blocked a page because it contained the word "toad."* And then there's the word "swearing" itself...
* Entirely true. Apparently.
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Date: 2009-12-11 06:59 am (UTC)I always like wondering what common words everyone uses today without question will be considered offensive in the future.