Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Birkenshaw Tale

I have Jeffrey Kacirk's famous desk calendar on "Forgotten English". Occasionally I try to make up stories using some of the words. Here is an example based on today's word:

Today's Forgotten English: birkenshaw—"a sunny place of all kinds of brushwood—a poet's country. There they roam unseen amang the Birks and yellow broom, and tune their pipes." (John McTaggart, Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824.)

Example of usage…

Some aged hippies from San Francisco, with backpacks stuffed with all sorts of good stuff, wandered around the birkenshaw of northern Marin county, looking for a nice spot for grooving out on Nature while smoking some of it. Of course, they were wearing Birkenstocks in the birkenshaw, and funky tie-dyed shirts with little leather vests with dangly strings and beads. After a day of grooving in the birkenshaw, they traipsed back to the highway and hopped in their volvos and drove to their favorite Starbucks, back in San Francisco, for some mochas and pastries. The next weekend, the aged hippies returned to their favorite spot in the birkenshaw for another beautiful afternoon of love, peace, and soul. When they arrived, they found their hideout taken over by some deranged bums. One bum pulled a knife on them. Screaming in terror, they fled as fast as their Birkenstocks could carry them.

Moral of story: To paraphrase V.I. Lenin, "One bum with a knife can beat a hundred aged hippies without one."