Quick notes--

[kaberett]

I am currently having the problem with Duolingo French, you see, that it is trying to teach me the word for wallet, and the word it thinks means wallet is "le portefeuille". Which is all fine and good, as far as it goes, except that the French word I know meaning wallet is, er, "das Portemonnaie". Because German, you see, or at least my flavour of German, went through a phase (as did much of the rest of Europe) that can summarised, somewhat crudely, as You Know What's Really Sexy? French. French Is Really Sexy.

I have no idea whether Duolingo thinks le portemonnaie is an acceptable translation, and I suppose I will find out next time I find myself learning how to talk about clothes in French. (I am dubious. Duolingo persists in not believing in potatoes, you see, even if it has condescended to believe in priests.)

---

The University of Oxford Botanic Garden, meanwhile, have an attempt at Engaging Their Younger Visitors, as best I can tell, that consists of sticking a bunch of laminated Shakespeare quotes near plants mentioned in said quotes, which series is entitled Bill's Blooms.

I was delighted to realise that one of these was taken from Much Ado About Nothing (II.i):

The count is neither sad nor sick, nor merry nor well; but civil count, civil as an Orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

... except, to my slight consternation, it was attached to an example of Citrus madurensis, the Calamondin orange.

I perambulated the remainder of the Conservatory, which contained a goodly set of Citrus. (A fact of which I had not previously been aware: nobody knows what the fuck lemons are. Citrus medica x Citrus aurantifolia, suggest Oxford, with which Wikipedia does not agree.) Not represented, alas, was Citrus aurantium, the bitter - or Seville - orange. Well, fair enough, thinks I; if they have no Seville, it is reasonable that the quotation not be attached to a Seville.

... they do so have a bloody Seville -- it's just over in the Palm House.

I have sent them an e-mail thanking them profusely for my lovely afternoon, and inquiring as to whether they just... don't think that joke's as funny as I do, then.

(It's okay! I was actually more polite than that, I promise.)

---

"Excuse me," I said to the woman in the charity shop, bent to peer at the bookcase, "could I trouble you to reach me down a book from the top shelf...? Oh, thank you so much -- second from the left, Americanah..."

"Oh, good find," she said, "I'm trying desperately to quickly find something to read, that looks like the only good thing on that shelf. But--" and here she brandished some Orhan Pamuk at me.

... and having thus Bonded over Literature, we went our separate ways, which at least in my case involved being briefly deeply embarrassed about What It Is I Have Become, as a result of which I knocked a shoe onto my head; it thonked pleasingly as it bounced, somewhat sadly, to the floor.

Comments

[wildeabandon]

Duo teaches porte-monnaie as purse or coin purse.

[legionseagle]

Ah, that would make sense, because I was always taught "monnaie" as a false friend when used for "money": it should be "small change".

I'm alarmed by the idea of someone having a complexion like either of those citruses, btw; did they really have fake tan in Shakespeare's day? (I once had a colleague who was a very promising trainee, but I had to keep mentally kicking myself for thinking of her as "the little orange one.")

[redsixwing]

Maybe it's a textural thing? Or perhaps he ate too many carotenes?

[kaberett]

Whereas all my wallets have coin pockets, so! :-)

I suspect the intended analogy is one of texture rather than of colour -- Seville oranges are much more pitted and rough-skinned than sweet oranges. (THOUGH ALSO I am endlessly delighted by the bit where "orange" as a colour post-dates the fruit! Albeit not by enough to actually be relevant to the issue of Much Ado, which post-dates orange-the-colour-attested-in-writing by about sixty years.)

[legionseagle]

Pock-marked skin? Oh, God, it's not Another Bloody Shakespearean Syphilis Joke again, is it?

(We had Measure for Measure as an A Level set text. It left scars.)

Carrots used to be purple and the Dutch horticulturalists selectively bred them to be orange as a compliment to the ruling family, for that matter. Say it with vegetables...

[kaberett]

Oh good shout, it might be at that, mightn't it. Hmm. Though actually the count is in this instance one of the heros of the play, so perhaps not? Various internet glosses suggest that they might be referring to the unripe state of the Seville, greenish-yellow, to be about coloration after all (in the Shakespearean sense of green-eyed jealousy)...

[kaberett]

Aha, good to know! I have not got that fair yet. (I am desultorily brushing up my GCSE French, subsequently used mostly on scientific pissing matches of the 1860s, around the rather more challenging endeavour of remembering the bits of Turkish I learned at the beginning of last summer...)

I am also finding the differences in terms of which vocabulary's considered important in which languages very interesting, in a casual sort of a way!

[rmc28]

I think that joke is hilarious, and I can't understand why it's not next to the right orange.

[kaberett]

Reasons I can immediately think of include "that's the greenhouse with all the citrus in and they wanted something there For The Kids so that their parents/carers could visit it", "they've got a big Fairtrade notice next to the right orange and finding the space might be tricksy", and "... they didn't get the joke", so the e-mail was mostly "are there more reasons I didn't think of?" only, as I say, phrased more purely-inquisitively and politely.

I am very fond of Much Ado. Very Fond Indeed. I was properly delighted that it was there at all. (I... do not think most small children would be, however, hence -- in part -- my perplexity at the project.)

[syderia]

Un porte-monnaie is the version of wallet which carries only coins and bills, while un portefeuille carries also your papers (ID card, driving licence...).

[ninetydegrees]

True. To complicate things a bit, some porte-monnaie double up as (small) portefeuilles and let you carry everything but checkbooks. I had one and called it a porte-monnaie because it looked like one but I could also could have called it a portefeuille.

[kaberett]

Ha, right, yes, that sounds like the form factor of wallet I normally use (and is correctly described as das Portemonnaie auf Deutsch, hence the problem arising at all...)

[kaberett]

Thank you!

[redsixwing]

Fascinated that nobody knows what lemons are.
All I know about lemons is they don't grow here, and I wish they did, because they're delicious and I would eat more if they weren't so expensive.

[kaberett]

"I had no idea that lemons were not a more-or-less solved problem", says me_and, which I wish to preserve because AS IT TURNS OUT I am sufficiently fond of him to find the turn of phrase endearing.

[vass]

It is an excellent turn of phrase. (Did he hear about Go?)

I didn't get that joke (civil/Seville) until now, and I am GREATLY DELIGHTED. Much Ado is one of my favourites too, which is a star danced when the cat sitting on the arm of my couch right now was born. (Her mother meowed.)[*]

[* Metaphorically. I mean, I adopted her when she was one and a half, so I was not present for the birth. And according to the microchip registry, her previous name was Toby, which is an entirely different Shakespeare knock-knock joke.]

[kaberett]

He did hear about Go! He was very pleased.

(uncappsed because I am trying to shout at people less, even when it's emphatic joy--) I am delighted to have shared the joke with you! Isn't it a good joke. :D

[vass]

(is that a thing you'd like other people to be not doing at you/in your space too? I enjoy delighted shouting, both to do and to listen to, but I can make a note to modulate my typeface if it's a problem.)

[kaberett]

(no it's a thing I'm 100% on board with, I am V Into Delighted Shouting, but I'm doing the thing where I'm not tracking brilliantly at the moment? and I know it upsets Some People? but I have NO IDEA if it upsets people who actually read me so given that I'm going through a phase of "I should be small and unobtrusive" anyway it is, uh, yeah. ye-aaaaaaaaaaah.)

[skygiants]

Americanah is my next book-club book, I am very much looking forward to reading it!

[kaberett]

Oooh, in which case I look forward to your review!