Skyharbours and Fleetfoots

OK, firstly, the news post bit: I just captured a bookcrossing book, and am disproportionally excited by that. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here. You may notice, if you go to my bookshelf, that there's a new book free for the asking to anyone who wants it.

Anyway.

You might or might not remember when I mentioned the anaesthetic of familiarity. This morning I woke up with the word "Flughafen" in my mind. It's German for "Airport", but literally translated it means "Skyharbour". Now, I don't know about you, but next time I have to go to an airport, I'm going to refer to it as a Skyharbour. Airport suggest buses, flo-tex carpets and queues that will take you to Stanstead or Gatwick or Bradford. Skyhabour suggests some kind of Final-Fantasy-esque catapult that will fling you into a polygon-rendered mangic tunnel to take you to the City of Dishes, or something. And we really ought to feel that way about airports. They're magical things. I've travelled from Bristol to Ireland in an hour, because I flew. Like, in the sky. When Christopher Columbus went to the Caribean, it took him slightly more than two months and a lot of the crew died. When I went, I only ate two meals on the way.

You don't have to go to Heathrow for magic, though. A bicycle was once known as a Velocipede, that is, a"Fleetfoot". It's an aluminium and steel tool you walk on to make you run as fast as a horse.

The Icelandic word for "computer" is Tolva, from the words for "Number Oracle".

A pretty good way to rekindle wonder at little things is to read about Anglo-Saxons. Ancient Anglo-Saxons are one of my favourite historical civilisations, possibly because I'm a modern Anglo-Saxon. One of the things they did to entertain themselves in the long evenings you got in the Dark Ages, was to make up riddles that were often parallel with calling bicyles "Fleetfoots". For example, since you do falconry with your arm, the arm can be refered to as the "Hawks' land". Since people wore gold arm-rings, gold could be "the fire of the Hawks' land". This kind of thing drives translators mad to this day.

So that's what I urge you to do today. Try thinking up Anglo-Saxon style kennings for everyday activities and how you would describe them to impress Byrhtnoth.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to use my Fleetfoot to go home to my kitchen, where I'll use the Inferno Jug to make an infusion of herbs from India. Right after I watch a moving picture by some boys from Atlanta, Georgia.

Song in my head: "Parakeet" by REM