Hypozeuxis – a rhetorical term for an expression or sentence where every clause has its own independent subject and predicate; the use in a parallel construction of successive clauses each complete with subject and verb (eg I came, I saw, I conquered).
Friday’s answers
16/06/2017Teletext gets my thanks for posing the questions and can claim a virtual batch of florentines by leaving the answers below should all of us remain stumped.
No need to censor happy thoughts
16/06/2017This excerpt from Holly Walker’s memoir is a very sad reflection on the madness of modern life:
One Friday morning, about three months after my return to work, I held a drop-in clinic for constituents in Petone. Parliament was not sitting. When the clinic was over, I met Dave and Esther, fed her, and took her for a walk around our local park while she slept. It was a beautiful day, and I felt a rare sense of ease and wellbeing, so I took a picture and tweeted it, saying something like “What a perfect Petone day.”
A few days later, one of the Green Party’s press secretaries rang me up. A press gallery journalist, herself a working mother with young children, had seen my tweet and thoughtfully passed on that, to parents with children in daycare who would like nothing more than to be out walking with them on a sunny Friday afternoon, an MP posting a tweet like this was not a good look. The press secretary gently suggested that I might like to be sensitive to this. I took the feedback meekly, thanking her and agreeing to be more judicious in future. I could see how a mother with her own kids in daycare could look askance at that. . .
When did it become wrong to share a little moment of joy?
There are times when your own troubles make it difficult to appreciate another’s simple pleasures.
There are times when it would be insensitive to share your happy times with someone directly.
But those are times when you’re speaking or writing to someone personally.
Tweets go to the world, with a maximum of 140 characters which provide only a snapshot. They aren’t personal communications and should not be taken personally.
Parenthood is tough. Throwing work – paid or voluntary – into the mix makes it tougher. But if someone is so ground down they can’t let someone they don’t know delight in the good times with their baby, it is they, not the sharer who has the problem.
If anyone, public figure or not, has to censor their happy thoughts, then the world really has gone mad.
Quote of the day
16/06/2017Any kind of creative activity is likely to be stressful. The more anxiety, the more you feel that you are headed in the right direction. Easiness, relaxation, comfort – these are not conditions that usually accompany serious work. – Joyce Carol Oates who celebrates her 79th birthday today.
June 16 in history
16/06/20171487 Battle of Stoke Field, the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses.
1586 Mary, Queen of Scots, recognised Philip II of Spain as her heir.
1738 – Mary Katharine Goddard, American printer and publisher, was born (d. 1816).
1745 British troops took Cape Breton Island,.
1745 – Sir William Pepperell captured the French Fortress Louisbourg, during the War of the Austrian Succession.
1746 War of Austrian Succession: Austria and Sardinia defeated a Franco-Spanish army at the Battle of Piacenza.
1755 French and Indian War: the French surrendered Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians.
1779 Spain declared war on Great Britain, and the siege of Gibraltar began.
1815 Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, two days before the Battle of Waterloo.
1821 Old Tom Morris, Scottish golfer, was born (d. 1908).
1829 Geronimo, Apache leader, was born (d. 1909).
1836 The formation of the London Working Men’s Association gave rise to the Chartist Movement.
1846 The Papal conclave of 1846 concluded. Pius IX was elected pope, beginning the longest reign in the history of the papacy (not counting St. Peter).
1858 Abraham Lincoln delivered his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
1858 Battle of Morar during the Indian Mutiny.
1871 The University Tests Act allowed students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests, except for courses in theology.
1883 The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland killed 183 children.
1890 Stan Laurel, British actor and comedian, was born (d. 1965).
1891 John Abbott became Canada’s third prime minister.
1897 A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States was signed.
1903 The Ford Motor Company was incorporated.
1903– Roald Amundsen commenced the first east-west navigation of theNorthwest Passage.
1904 Eugen Schauman assassinated Nikolai Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland.
1904 Irish author James Joyce began a relationship with Nora Barnacle, and subsequently used the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; traditionally “Bloomsday“.
1911 A 772 gram stony meteorite struck the earth near Kilbourn, Columbia County, Wisconsin damaging a barn.
1912 Enoch Powell, British politician, was born (d. 1998).
1915 The foundation of the British Women’s Institute.
1922 General election in Irish Free State: large majority to pro-TreatySinn Féin.
1923 Baby farmer Daniel Cooper was hanged.
1924 The Whampoa Military Academy was founded.
1925 The most famous Young Pioneer camp of the USSR, Artek, was established.
1929 Pauline Yates, English actress, was born.
1930 Sovnarkom established decree time in the USSR.
1934 Dame Eileen Atkins, English actress, was born.
1937 Erich Segal, American author, was born (d. 2010).
1938 Joyce Carol Oates, American novelist, was born.
1940 World War II: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Premier of Vichy France.
1939 Billy Crash Craddock, American country singer, was born.
1940 – A Communist government was installed in Lithuania.
1948 The storming of the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane, operated by a subsidiary of the Cathay Pacific Airways, marked the first aircraft hijacking of a commercial plane.
1955 Pope Pius XII excommunicated Juan Perón.
1958 Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising were executed.
1961 Rudolf Nureyev defected at Le Bourget airport in Paris.
1963 Vostok 6 Mission – Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.
1967 The three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival began.
1972 Red Army Faction member Ulrike Meinhof was captured by police in Langenhagen.
1972 The largest single-site hydro-electric power project in Canada started at Churchill Falls, Labrador.
1976 Soweto uprising: a non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto turned into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd and kill 566 children.
1977 Oracle Corporation was incorporated as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
1989 Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian Prime Minister, was reburied in Budapest.
1997 The Dairat Labguer massacre in Algeria; 50 people killed.
2000 Israel complied with UN Security Council Resolutiwen 425 and withdrew from all of Lebanon, except the disputed Sheba Farms.
2010 – Bhutan became the first country to institute a total ban on tobacco.
2012 – China successfully launched its Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts – including the first female Chinese astronaut, Liu Yang – to the Tiangong-1 orbital module.
2012 – The United States Air Force’s robotic Boeing X-37Bspaceplanereturned to Earth after a classified 469-day orbital mission.
2013 – A multi-day cloudburst centered on the North Indian state of Uttarakhand caused devastating floods and landslides becoming the country’s worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami.
2013 – The 2013 Baga massacre started when Boko Haram militants engaged government soldiers in Baga.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia