Faynights

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The weblog of Chris and Laura Brown

Previous Posts

• You've been sleighed
• Every minute of every hour, I love a sunflower
• There will be no white flag above my door
• But there's no reason to cry
• How should I feel?
• Watching the wheels go round and round...
• Strawberries everywhere!
• Culture shock
• A penny from Heaven?
• Honey be good

E-mail

faynights at googlemail dot com

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Chris's projects

• The Hit Parade
• Random singles
• The Gene Pool

Laura's projects

• The Life of the Industrial Worker in 19th-Century Britain
• Marina Tsvetaeva

Links

Comics

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• Get Fuzzy
• Medium Large
• Mutts
• One Big Happy
• Watch Your Head

Music

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• The Dentists
• et cetera
• EveryHit.com
• How To Have 1000 Number Ones - The Easy Way
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• Alexis Petridis
• Popular
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• Marc Riley
• Sweeping The Nation
• UK singles chart
• The Wedding Present

Nature

• ARKive
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• Loris and potto conservation
• Perodicticus potto
• The Primata
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• Ultimate Ungulate
• WWF-UK

Politics

• Anne Applebaum
• The Beatroot
• Charter 97
• John Frum Weblog (possibly not work-safe)
• Justus for All
• Neeka's Backlog
• Scraps of Moscow
• Siberian Light
• A Step at a Time
• Terrorism Today
• Vladimir Vladimirovich™

Religion

• Catholic Ragemonkey
• Disputations
• The Girardian Lectionary
• The Journey of a Catholic Revert
• Universalis

Other cool stuff

• Broke in Berlin
• Exquisite Corpse
• Fake Apologies
• Hearing/Loss
• Language Hat
• James Lileks
• Mirabilis.ca
• Miss Manners
• Daniel Pinkwater
• Radio Polonia
• The Roost
• Sepia Mutiny
• Snopes
• StopKaz.com
• Sweet Swan of Kennet

Perhaps the most important word in the schoolchild's vocabulary is his truce term. Certainly to the adult observer it is his most interesting word, for when a child seeks respite he uses a term to which there is now no exact equivalent in adult speech. If, when engaged in some boisterous activity with his fellows, a child is exhausted or out of breath, or cuts himself, or has a shoelace undone, or fears his clothes are getting torn, or wants to know if it is time to go home, he makes a sign with his hands, and calls out a word which brings him immediate but temporary relief from the strife .... It will be appreciated that uttering a truce term does not of itself imply that a child has given in or surrendered, although it may sometimes be used preparatory to surrendering. A London urchin when fighting may cry 'faynights', whereupon his opponent, on ceasing to belabour him, may inquire 'Wanna give in?' and the boy will perhaps do so ('Okay, you win, leave me alone'). But more often, if a boy says 'faynights' or 'faynights -- hang on a sec' in the middle of a struggle, he does so because he wants to take off his jacket or his glasses before continuing the combat. And before we ourselves appreciated that children were sensitive to the difference between making a truce and surrendering, we were puzzled by the number of boys who declared stoutly (and correctly) that they had no term for giving in.

-- Peter and Iona Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Oxford University Press, 1959)