{"id":3140,"date":"2010-10-01T18:20:27","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T22:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2018-08-05T21:09:42","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T01:09:42","slug":"thursday-october-1-2010-%e2%80%95-some-fine-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3140","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, October 1, 2010 \u2015 Some Fine Conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">While in Caith\u00adness and Orkney, I had some delight\u00adful con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtions. Many were with Orca\u00addi\u00adans I met briefly, but did not exchange names with. <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">An Orkney bus dri\u00adver, in par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar, gave me a fine word pic\u00adture of what it\u2019s like to be a south\u00adern\u00ader relo\u00adcat\u00aded in Orkney.&nbsp;\u201cMy chil\u00addren are Orca\u00addi\u00adans,\u201d he said, after some reflec\u00adtions on the ambiva\u00adlent sta\u00adtus of new\u00adcom\u00aders in a very tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal place.&nbsp;Like many new\u00adcom\u00aders, he had fled the fast pace and com\u00adplex\u00adi\u00adties of the south to find a safe and qui\u00adet place to raise kids.&nbsp;Sev\u00ader\u00adal farm\u00aders answered my agri\u00adcul\u00adtur\u00adal ques\u00adtions terse\u00adly, but intelligently.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I had all-too-brief, but splen\u00addid dis\u00adcus\u00adsions with Dr. Alexan\u00addra San\u00admark and Dr. Ragn\u00adhild Ljosland, of the Cen\u00adtre for Nordic Stud\u00adies.&nbsp;Kevin Sin\u00adclair shared his mem\u00ado\u00adries of archae\u00adl\u00adog\u00adi\u00adcal digs on Orkney, and of the rise and fall of the Nuclear Pow\u00ader indus\u00adtry in Caith\u00adness.&nbsp;I was able to sort out a small mys\u00adtery with David Mack\u00adie, the Gan\u00addalf of the Orkney Archive.&nbsp;The name \u201cPomona,\u201d which is occa\u00adsion\u00adal\u00adly used as a sub\u00adsti\u00adtute for \u201cMain\u00adland,\u201d appar\u00adent\u00adly orig\u00adi\u00adnat\u00aded with a mis\u00adprint in some edi\u00adtions of a Latin work by a Dan\u00adish trav\u00adeller.&nbsp;While the orig\u00adi\u00adnal mere\u00adly men\u00adtioned that the island pro\u00adduced excel\u00adlent apples, the mis\u00adprint cap\u00adi\u00adtal\u00adized it into \u201cIsland of Apples.\u201d&nbsp;From this error arose a false notion that \u201cPomona\u201d was an archa\u00adic name for Main\u00adland Orkney.&nbsp;We dis\u00adcov\u00adered this in remark\u00adably short time because the Orkney Archive con\u00adtains many rare works, splen\u00addid\u00adly orga\u00adnized.&nbsp;Its col\u00adlec\u00adtion of Cana\u00addi\u00adan mate\u00adr\u00adi\u00adal aston\u00adished me.&nbsp;I had&nbsp;oth\u00ader dis\u00adcus\u00adsions with nat\u00adu\u00adral\u00adists and biol\u00ado\u00adgists, where names did\u00adn\u2019t make it into my note\u00adbooks, but which were nev\u00ader\u00adthe\u00adless high\u00adly enlightening.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Final\u00adly, I must men\u00adtion one pecu\u00adliar con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtion, which took place on the train between Thur\u00adso and Inver\u00adness.&nbsp;The train is a local run, stop\u00adping fre\u00adquent\u00adly.&nbsp;At one point, an old\u00ader and a younger woman board\u00aded the train, and sat next to me.&nbsp;They pro\u00adceed\u00aded to con\u00adverse in the sweet tones of Gael\u00adic.&nbsp;I lis\u00adtened, for quite awhile, just to get the feel\u00ading of the lan\u00adguage.&nbsp;But the younger woman spoke in a man\u00adner quite dis\u00adtinct from the oth\u00ader, and for ten min\u00adutes, some\u00adthing about it scratched at the back of my mind.&nbsp;Final\u00adly, I sum\u00admoned up the courage to inter\u00adrupt them.&nbsp;\u201cExcuse me,\u201d I said, sheep\u00adish\u00adly, \u201cbut am I right in think\u00ading that you are speak\u00ading Gael\u00adic with a Cana\u00addi\u00adan accent?\u201d&nbsp;The woman acknowl\u00adedged that she was indeed Cana\u00addi\u00adan.&nbsp;From Cape Bre\u00adton, Nova Sco\u00adtia, of course.&nbsp;The old\u00ader woman was her moth\u00ader-in-law, and she was mar\u00adried to a man on the Isle of Skye.&nbsp;Noth\u00ading could have pro\u00advid\u00aded a bet\u00adter coda to a theme that has run through these blog postings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I mused on the tragedy of the vio\u00adlent sup\u00adpres\u00adsion of Gael\u00adic, so that it is now spo\u00adken only by small num\u00adbers of peo\u00adple in remote places.&nbsp;No oth\u00ader lan\u00adguage is more delight\u00adful to the ear.&nbsp;If it had not been dis\u00adcour\u00adaged by brute force, it might today be the vehi\u00adcle of grand operas and time\u00adless novels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Chan eil aon ch\u00e0\u00adnan gu le\u00f2r. Mar sin leibh an dr\u00e0sda.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While in Caith\u00adness and Orkney, I had some delight\u00adful con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtions. Many were with Orca\u00addi\u00adans I met briefly, but did not exchange names with. An Orkney bus dri\u00adver, in par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar, gave me a fine word pic\u00adture of what it\u2019s like&nbsp;to&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3140\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-aq-blog-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3140"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7755,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140\/revisions\/7755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}