Polish Wind

Introduction

This is another Seven Days in piece that was getting a lot of traction, and it is a bit all over the place, but I thought it is relevant to writers about the difficulties of the English language that make it so brilliant to write with.

These are two internet steals that demonstrate a few more aspects of the language. If you see a word written down, you often will not know how to pronounce it until it is used in context.

Similarly, if you hear a word spoken, you will not know what that word is until you hear it in context in the sentence where it has been used.

I know this veers off the use of words to music, but you know that usually happens with me.

Polish Wind

How do you pronounce that? Is it Polish, - relating to Poland, or polish - to buff something up? Is it wind - the atmospheric movement of air or wind - the method of tightening something up like a spring on a mechanical clock. Then the words wind, wined, and, at a push, whined could all sound the same when spoken. In isolation, you wouldn't know what the person meant. Similarly, wind and winned are both the same.

The English language is brilliant for writers and wordsmiths, but it must be hell to learn as a foreign language.

The reason that this came up is I was watching "Bitter Lake" last night and the police turned up, and the word POLIS was on the car, but the end of the word was slightly obscured by snow, and I thought, is that POLIS or POLISH? "Bitter Lake" is well short on humour, although it is absolutely excellent.

The link above is to watch on BBC iPlayer, so if you are not in the UK you may not have access to it, but it is well worth tracking down, especially in these times.

This is my first post in which I have mentioned Poland. Currently, I have two Polish friends, Marek, who runs RPM and Ola whom I worked with (at the time of writing). At school, I had lots of Polish friends and used to rehearse at Chorley Polish Club with my first band Cyrus Teed. I remember the first gig was a snowy night in Chorly and during the drum solo in "Wipe Out" the drum podium (which consisted of four big blocks) split four ways, leaving the drummer, crowd, and us "surprised".

Anyway, we had real snow last night (see here on my Instagram feed)

I have donned a large pair of boots because I would like to see what Nunsmoor is like covered in snow so that's a ¾ mike walk on snow-covered paths, but I will post a video on Instagram if I get there before I freeze.

For absolutely no reason apart from the snow/rain at the start of the video, I'm including Jordan Reyne's "Shadow Line" which still gives me goosebumps, reminding me of the first time I saw her (documented here). Wrap up and be careful if you have to go out.

Jordan also has a new project, "The Loneliness Industry" about dealing with being alone and related issues:

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this. Your support is always appreciated.

I hope you have found something interesting and some food for thought. English can be a very flowery and confusing language but Shakespeare stretched it significantly in his writing, including adding many words that are in use today. Below is a meme and a link to all his works on Kindle if you want to explore further.