MRSGREN and the magnolia

With thanks to Jeffrey Dunn,
courtesy of TESconnect

In our front  garden, much to the regret of MrsK, there is a magnolia. Its natural size (if I gave the G of MRSGREN its head and let it grow unchecked) is far too big for its position. If not pruned (something not usually required for magnolias) it would totally blot out the front of the house. Only the second-floor rooms would have a view [of sorts] between the greenery.

So I prune it constantly – not just once or twice a year...

<autobiographical_note      theme="gardenfreude">

Come to think of it, what would my father have said, inside, on a lovely day like this? Aren't there jobs to do in the garden?... (In his view, any day  – as far as getting the kids outside was concerned  – was lovely [just as 8.00 in the morning was the middle of the day]). But today,  here in sunny Berkshire, England, it really is lovely. The rest of this post will have to wait. 

<autobiographical_note>

... but whenever I'm passing. This, as many gardeners will know, causes a feedback loop: the more it's cut back, the faster it grows. This ‘pruning'  involves two things: dead-heading (which gets rid of both the disfiguring browning petals and  the seed-pod – which would only sap the plant's energy), and taking out growing shoots (which avoids a trip to the garden shed for the secateurs).

This process affords lots of thinking time, and among the topics are MRSGREN – particularly one of the Rs G, E, and N. (The other three are there somewhere, I'm sure, but Physics with Chemistry O Level 1968 wouldn't guarantee my face against streaks of egg).

There is an evolutionary deal that links the first of the  Rs E, and N. In order to Reproduce, the magnolia needs to arrange for cross-pollination. And it does this by producing reproduction bombs. Passing animals are tempted by the outer casing of the bombs (which they need for Nourishment). Hidden away inside that outer casing is the bomb's payload – the fruit's seeds.

The passing animal (not necessarily passing, as many animals return repeatedly, on an intricate set of schedules ...

<digression> 

Aha – there's the M, both in the eater, and in the pollinator, and even in the plant itself, manoeuvring its leaves towards the Sun, to fuel the Growth of  the bloom 

</digression>

...to gather the bombs (fruit), eats them (N) and then excretes them (E – which further justifies the word passing [now I come to think of it], along with a bit more N for whatever plants happen to be there.)  conveniently wrapped in a growing medium, and sterilized by the passing animal's gastric juices.

Gene-bomb from the magnolia, which escaped

my destructive inspection for several weeks

Then along comes Mr McGregor and interferes. We horticulturists [Guilty, yer 'onner] know that in order to extend the flowering time of a shrub you need to dead-head it (which, when you think about it, is a pretty dastardly thing to do – it frustrates the plant's deal with the passing animals, not entirely unlike the way a cuckoo frustrates the deal between the duped "parent"-bird and its mate).^PPPS

Like any other living thing, the magnolia needs to Reproduce before it dies (or, more precisely, before it stops being fertile). The poor dead-headed magnolia thinks (if you'll excuse the Princeps-Caroline anthropomorphism)  "Bugrit. My job is not yet done. I must have another go." So it starts again, Growing a new flower – only for my dead-heading to snatch the victory cup from its lips again, and again, and ...

As Samuel Morse so nearly wrote, WHAT HATH DARWIN WROUGHT?

b

<crossword_clue>
Ways of combining penny buns and rice.  (8)
</crossword_clue>

Update 2015.08.11.12:15 – Fixed a few typoes (I wonder what the collective noun for them is – an embarrassment perhaps...), and completed thought in blue.

Update 2015.10.05.14:30 – Added PS

And while we're on the subject of Movement (in plants), most plants exhibit phototropism, which accounts for Jerusalem Artichokes being so-called, as Etymonline says:

...Jerusalem "artichoke" is folk etymology of Italian girasole "sunflower" (see girasole).

...Gira-sole means "turn-sun".

Update 2016.03.11.14:30 – Added PPS and deleted footer:

PPS: Time's up: RECIPES (I counted wrong [correction: there's a C left over; sorry)]
Update 2016.06.04.13:05 – Added magnolia fruit picture.

Update 2016.06.09.17:40 – Added PPPS (footnote)

PPPS I've realized on re-reading that this metaphor might need a bit of unpacking (itself a complex metaphor, though one that is quite current  [at least it is among people who listen regularly to In Our Time]).

Duped Bird & Cuckoo (DBC), Magnolia & Mr McGregor (MMG) 

Needs to reproduce – DBC: lays egg / MMG: sets seed
Needs to dupe for own ends – DBC: cuckoo lays own egg / MMG: prunes/dead-heads
Victim duped – DBC: Host bird feeds cuckoo chick  / MMG: Mag. sets fruit again

Update 2017.03.10.15:30 – Added P⁴S

P⁴S: (Springing into life again after a year;) The magnolia's beginning to blossom already:

The War Against Error

When I first saw the title of If you need to explain why it's wrong... (a blog post) I suspected that it was another case of ellipsis-abuse, and meant 'If you need to explain why, it's wrong'. But I was wrong. The unexpressed (ellipted) conclusion was '....in what sense are we using the word wrong?', or - more radically - '...how can we say it's wrong?'

The title of the post was suggested by an experience that the blogger describes at the outset: 

Do you know what the word ambivalent means?

A student of mine was very pleased to be able to catch me out with this word. I had assumed it meant "not particularly bothered", but apparently it doesn't. I had a hunch about this word so I asked four of the native speakers sitting with us what they thought. Three said they had no idea and one said she thought it meant something similar to what I had thought. 

This student got me thinking; when no one knows the so-called 'correct' meaning, how can it still be considered correct? Likewise, if a language rules exists but no one follows it, is it still a rule?

As a matter of fact I do know what ambivalent means; by guessing on the basis of ambidextrous and co-valent (from a half-remembered chemistry lesson) I can see that it means more than not particularly bothered. But I also know, from studying the history of languages, that historical mistakes play a big part in the meaning of words now. My own post told the intriguing story of how a bat (an 'owl-mouse') became a 'bald-mouse' (Fr chauve-souris); but the unarguably correct word for 'bat' in French enshrines that mistake.

At the end of a recent discussion here (pay special attention to the thread title) I posted this correction:

I missed this first time around. It's such a commmon (make that 'commmmmon') mistake that I've become de-sensitized.

Millenium, if it existed ('These are the only ones of which the news has come to Hahvard/And there may be many others but they haven't been discuhvered') would be an element with the atomic number 1,000. A period of a thousand years is a millenNium.

Another discussion in the same forum involved some ritual posturing about the meanings of {yawn} infer and imply. The final (or maybe I should say 'latest') post pointed to this dictionary definition, which gave these four definitions:

1. To conclude from evidence or premises.

2. To reason from circumstance; surmise: We can infer that his motive in publishing the diary was less than honorable.

3. To lead to as a consequence or conclusion: "Socrates argued that a statue inferred the existence of a sculptor" (Academy). [BK Sic - I've no idea what that is; I suppose I could have brushed it under the carpet with an ellipsis, but I thought I'd let you share my confusion.]

4. To hint; imply.

What's a girl to think? Meanings 1 and 2 are the inverse of meanings 3 and 4. The dictionary comes to the rescue with a Usage Note:

The use of infer to mean imply is common in both speech and writing, but is regarded by many people as incorrect

Errors happen, and they play a role in the evolution of language. I know that. In Darwinian evolution (if you'll excuse the excursus), a faulty copy of the gene for neck growth - I'm over-simplifying here of course, but bear with me - gives a proto-giraffe a tiny advantage in the Acacia-leaf-gobbling Stakes and thus makes a longer neck more likely to feature in the next generation. But given my run of  the human genome I wouldn't swap a few As and Cs for Gs and Ts at random on the off-chance of causing a fitter mutation. I prefer what I know works.

The same goes for language. There are some 'mistakes' that are well on the way to being incorporated into 'the standard language' - whatever that is; but I will not knowingly make them. I am a prescriptivist in descriptivist's clothing. But I'm not sure I understand how it's possible to be anything else if you love language.

b

Notes from the word-face
Yesterday I broached the -EU-s. As I did much of the work 18 months ago, in preparation for my ELton 2012 submission, this digraph shouldn't take long; I just have to 're-purpose' it, as they used to say in the tech-writing world, and reformat it. But, barring cruel strokes of fate, release 2 of  When Vowels Get Together should happen next month. And in the dimmer and more distant future, there may well be an ELTons 2014 submission of the whole thing
* Update 2013.04.05: It's here.

Update: 2013.10.02.15:55
HeadFooter updated
Update: 2015.12.02.22:05 – and again:

---

Mammon When Vowels Get Together V5.2: Collection of Kindle word-lists grouping different pronunciations of vowel-pairs. Now complete (that is, it covers all vowel pairs – but there's still stuff to be done with it; an index, perhaps...?)

And here it is: Digraphs and Diphthongs . The (partial) index has an entry for each vowel pair that can represent each monophthong phoneme. For example AE, EA and EE are by far the most common pairs of vowels used to represent the /i:/ phoneme, but there are eight other possibilities. The index uses colour to give an idea of how common a spelling is, ranging from bright red to represent the most common to pale olive green to represent the least common.

I'm thinking about doing a native iBook version in due course, but for now Mac users can use Kindle's own (free) simulator.

Also available at Amazon: When Vowels Get Together: The paperback.

And if you have no objection to such promiscuity, Like this. 

Freebies (Teaching resources:  Nearly 50,000 views and 9,000 downloads to date**. They're very eclectic - mostly EFL and MFL, but one of the most popular is from KS4 History, dating from my PGCE, with nearly 2,700 views and nearly 1,100 downloads to date. So it's worth having a browse.)

** This figure includes the count of views for a single resource held in an account that I accidentally created many years ago.