Saturday 30 June 2012

Testicles. A Perfectly Legitimate Title For This Article.

My extremely handsome son George and I. Or should that be 'and me'? I have never worked that out. I'm the same with apostrophes. Never quite sure where they should go. Indeed, should the word apostrophes have an apostrophe? Have I just made two grammatical errors? Or should that be punctuation errors? I don't know. Doesn't really bother me that much. To be honest with you I don't even know why I mentioned it. Although if I did give it some thought, perhaps I could come up with a reason. Why do I get sidetracked like this? It drives me nuts. Have you ever wondered why abbreviation is such a long word? Or why dyslexia is such a hard word to spell? No, of course you haven't. Anyway, I digress. Now where was I?

Yes, I was about to say. Before my own brain cell interrupted me, that my extremely handsome son George and me. Or I, have been out looking for wild flowers again. Or more specifically orchids. We found some too. In fact we found a bit of old fashioned meadow, full of wild flowers. Lots of orchids too.

Because of George's interest in wild plants -I think the apostrophe is correct in his name. Not entirely sure though- I bought him a book yesterday. A pocket guide to British wild flowers. It was also a present to say well done on gaining three distinctions in his exams. Just thought I would mention that. You know, the proud dad thing. Mind you I am not even sure what gaining a distinction means, let alone three of them. But it does sound pretty impressive. Don't you think? Anyway he has his BTEC in sport, and he worked really hard.

One thing that upset me a bit was that they spelt his middle name wrong on the certificate. Instead of George Victor, they have put George Victer. Someone needs spelling lessons. It might seem petty to be upset by this, but he is named after my late brother Victor, and I feel that as this is an important certificate that will be with him forever, it should be done properly. I intend to see that this mistake is put right very soon. Think I'll ask Tricia to deal with it.

Back to the orchids. Did you know that orchid actually means testicle? It's true! Apparently the orchid roots resemble the male testicles, and that is how it got its name. Orchid means testes. The orchid plant does not appear every year either. The testicle shaped roots can lie dormant for many years without anything happening, and then suddenly spring into life. Hey, I know that feeling!

10 comments:

  1. I like your wildflowers pics.
    Didn't know that about orchids.
    Congrats to your "extremely handsome son" George. Well done on the degree!!!

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  2. I didn't know that, but won't say "hey, nice testicles" when I'm next in the florists!
    Jane x

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  3. LOL @ Jane and Chris! I had no idea about orchids. Well done on your son's achievements. That is great and yes, I agree they should spell his name the right way.

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  4. I'm glad you explained about the orchids. I always feel slightly concerned when I see the post titles, wondering what I'm letting myself in for (now that IS grammatically incorrect). Congratulations to George and you're right to have a go about the misspelling.

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  5. Well isn't that interesting about the orchid. You are just a wealth of information. :)

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  6. Well, you learn something new every day. Many congratulations to George, he's obviously worked hard to gain three distinctions, and I agree about the spelling, it should be put right.

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  7. Boy, that was a long 'trip' to find the meaning to your title. You have balls to lead us on like this.

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  8. What a lot of news you shared with us today. EHS George's accomplishments, grammar and punctuation dilemmas, a day in the meadow, spelling mistakes by those who should certainly be called to task because they should know better, and a lesson about testicles in the plant world. Whew!

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  9. Great post, the last line cracked me up.

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  10. Your posts often make me smile, thanks for that. As a teacher I should be concerned with grammatical things but if worrying about such thing would put a dampener on creative communication, then I'd prefer to have the post as written. Good on George for becoming certified, shame about the name situation. Skitch Tricia onto them when she comes back.

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