That was very interesting, and no sarcasm is intended although it's hard to prove that without the use of tone of voice or facial expression.

Well, it's gone like clockwork so far - all bar the phone line (again) so I may not be able to post much for a bit. Keys arrived, then a van of stuff (including a sofa) which was brought up the stairs by two burly Mancunians. Then a couple of car loads of stuff, followed by a bed, which was brought up the stairs by a burly Edinburgher and further assembled by him. Which was just as well, cos it would have taken us about five hours and we'd have done a really rubbish job of it too. Boxes of stuff still arriving in dribs and drabs, and we're slowly finding places to put all their contents. Nothing's yet come off in our hand or fallen off the wall or ceiling. The heating and shower works, the loo flushes... so pretty smooth so far I would say. I have, however, discovered muscles I never knew I had. Living on the top floor of a tenement block must be good for you, surely.

Oh, and we can't find the stopcock...

[rab] Good luck an' all in your new home. The loo *might* flush, but just check it. My mother discovered the loo in her new bungalow flushes with water from the hot water system. (Have I mentioned this before?)

(pen) Doesn't this tend to vapourise the ordures, the very thing one tries to avoid?

[Rosie] Quite. Bob the plumber is coming round to fix it.

We don't seem to have any team games on the go at the moment. Anyone up for a - let's say a three way split, he says, trying to second-guess the likely number of players. Puce - Green - Chartreuse are I believe the traditional colours for such a split.

I read the other day that "miniature" (and the "mini-" prefix) comes from "minium", Latin for red. This refers to the small red lettering on a miniature portrait or similar. I'm going to look this up now, just to check. Incidentally, that doesn't pardon 6 quiz teams of staff from our local primary school being unable to spell "minuscule", despite the fact that it was on my son's spelling list 2 years ago (aged 8). Not one team got "manoeuvre" right, either.

OK, I've looked it up, and: Yes, miniature does derive from miniare (to colour red), from minium (red lead). Mini- is listed, however, as deriving from miniature and minimum, from minimus (least).
I think I need to do more research to ease my troubled mind.

WHAT? None of them could spell 'minuscule' or 'manoeuvre'? There a load of idiot's.

Have we ever played 'Shipping Crescent, To The Ends of The Earth', with a winning move, Dogger? Faster play during good visibility, obviously, and headwinds take the LV equivalent down a notch. And watch out for those South East Iceland loops. Shipping areas here.

[Rosie] I think you mean 'lode'.

[Rosie] Indeed, not one team got those words correct. They did marginally better with "accommodation", "Massachusetts" and "knowledgeable". However, I think only 1 team got "diarrhoea" right. I've done much harder spelling rounds in the past; admittedly that was for quiz addicts, and once was deliberately written to prevent a certain team winning, because I knew they would play their joker on a spelling round. I put in words like "eschscholtzia", "waqf" etc. just to screw them up :-)

(SM) I do. Your right.

[Rosie] Write, shurely?

(Chalky) Surely, surely?

A mnemonic a teacher at school taught us several years ago:
Dashing In A Rush, Running Hard, Or Early Accident.
You'll never forget how to spell diarrhoea again!

'Diarrhoea': S-K-W-I-T-S That's my mum's mneonic, bless her.

My own Mum's prim version was "Air raid backwards". The opposite was "knobs". It was all "po". (SM) Yes, but what do S-K-W-I-T-S stand for? The SHITS, by the way, is a section of the band of the Irish Guards who call themselves the Society of Harmonious Irish Tunesmiths. This is true.

[Simons] I always thought it was "squits." That's how they spell it in Theme Hospital, too, so it must be right.

[Darren] That's what I thought too. But my mum does tend to take the path less travelled by, when it comes to spelling.

I defnatley have "squits" sometimes have "the trots" but mostly have diarrhoea

[Lib] You really need to see a doctor as soon as possible.

No mention yet of Montezuma's Revenge, The Bombay Trots or Delhi Belly?

Wow! rab's new flat is Edinburgh airport!

[Darren] No, it's been raining as heavily up there as down south. Never mind a raincoat, yesterday afternoon I wished I'd brought a bucket and spade to work.

I'm getting bored of saying this now. I have more free time than I know what to do with, but instead of doing something useful with it, like learn Russian, I'm going to play MC until I vomit. Hoorah!

OOOOPS. Sorry.

I can say 'Here is my passport' in russian.
... and 'How are your parents' in portuguese.
I'd do well if I was dropped in the middle of Europe wouldn't I?

Following on from the Eight Words Game, did anyone watch the '50 Greatest Comedy Sketches' programme a few days ago, and did it seem to anyone else that the funniest sketches were all 30 or 40 years old (Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Monty Python etc.)? I don't know who the public were that voted, but they didn't ask ME.

[Knobbly] Are you saying that the older sketches didn't deserve their place there, or not?

Not at all - I'm saying that the older sketches were the funniest ones in it and that I don't think much of Little Britain, which won.

Despite not having seen the comedy sketches show in question, I'd like to back up Knobbly with my concordance of opinion.

What about a game of rhyming or alliterative instructions for disposing of annoying celebrities and public figures?

I'd say by all means. I was also thinking of Cress but couldn't get the game started.

How about a two or three way team game? Puce v Chartreuse or Puce v Green v Chartreuse? I wouldn't advocate more than three teams - we don't really have enough players.

[pen] I was about to ask "How many of those do you think there'll be?" before scanning down see the game made and very well underway.
[SM] Sounds good - it seems like Crescent games aren't taking off at present and perhaps that would make it more interesting.

[nights] Did the Proposal Vetting Panel give you grief?

[rab] They did indeed. Damn bureaucracy. Seriously though, any reason why it didn't go through?

The Panel tends to get a bit shirty if it thinks you're starting a reheat of something old and tired. Placing old wine into new bottles sometimes helps.

I just received an email beginning "Do please diary this year's poster evening" and thought of, hmmm, almost everybody here.

(Not quite understanding...) Is it something to do with turning nouns into verbs? Or 'verbing' you might say.

who was it who said 'verbing weirds nouns'?

Are you willing to let me know who sent the email? I'd so love to reply :-)
[pen] It was Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes)

[pen, Phil] Indeed, "verbing weirds language" - but a six-year-old or anyone else being silly should be allowed to. Serious usage of something like diary as a verb is definitely something we'll all get flighty about. We should be touched rab thought of us though.

(rab) Bin it.

[Rosie] We were waiting for you. Well said.
Meanwhile, what shall we do with that spare game slot?

[Tuj] Not all of us. :-)

I can't get to mcios this morning. Anyone else having any trouble? (More generally, the internets seem to be very slow here in France, but I can reach most sites.)

[CdM] MCiOS seems to be OK from here, as, indeed, does the net in general.

[CdM] Buy new internets.

In "verbing weirds language", it's not a noun that has been verbed (as a noun, "weird" means "fate"), but an adjective. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another example of this formation - but I'm sure I'll now be inundated with verbed adjectives that are unbelievably obvious.

I wonder if those arrested for attempting to bomb Lonodn-US flights this morning waited deliberately until Tony Blair was on holiday and John Prescott was in charge?

[pen] I doubt if one blithering idiot is more likely to be of use to the nation than another in an emergency. Thanks for bringing the news to my attention though - I didn't know anything about it till now.

[Phil] One example in standard English occurs to me: to black (a pair of boots, or a place of work).

Similarly, "to right something" and perhaps also (less clear) "to wrong someone"?

[Raak/CdM] However, "black" is also a noun. So is "wrong" and "right." Can an example be found which verbs an adjective which is not also a noun?

I was going to point out that "to up prices" involves verbing a preposition, but "up" can yet again be used as a noun.

Of course, in programming you can talk about "anding" and "oring" two numbers, but that falls more into jargon than standard English.

Loose?

Isn't that just a contraction of 'let loose', in which case 'let' is the verb?

Turpentine can be used to thin oil paint.

The map is ornated with three cartouches.

When the ossibuchi have browned on one side, turn them to brown the other.

(Ok, "brown" can be a noun, but I just like saying "ossibuchi".)

[challenge] I actually think instances of verbed nouns-not-usable-as-adjectives are even rarer than instances of verbed adjectives-not-usable-as-nouns. However, I did find an example of a verbing of a non-adjectival noun: You can tree a cat. BTW Calvin's only 12 years younger than I am. He'd be 26 sometime this year. Yeesh!