Blog Note: New Weekend

Going forward, TOP won't be publishing on Fridays and Saturdays, but hopefully will publish on all the other days. However, I'll be posting tomorrow, since I didn't yesterday. (I wanted to give the previous day's long post more of a "soak." It took a long time to write.)

I learned something lately. The last two times I took time off...I took time off. And it did me a world of good. Usually, I just shift to working on other things. The last two times, though, I took it easy. Didn't do anything. Didn't even get on the computer (well, much). It was restorative and rejuvenating. It improved my mood and attitude. I needed that.

I guess this is what normal people call "normal"—most people observe what the French call "le week-end." We probably got the term from them. (I'm kidding. They complain that loan words from English are ruining French, and that's pretty funny since modern English got about a third of its words from French in the first place—you know, those invading Normans. But I digress.)

Most people work five days on, two days off. Time to try that.

Mike

P.S. A few examples of the words we got from French or the French: lots of words in art, music, dance, and theater—including art, music, dance, and theater; photography; chassis, fusillade, aviation, mustard and custard, blue, beige, spinach, lemon and apricot; fillet, fondue, automobile, lintel, terrace, arch and vault; January, television, helicopter, oxygen and stew; maroon, turbine, mayonnaise, beef, nephew, chlorophyll, stratosphere, braille, sedan, nicotine, saxophone and chauvinism; Cheyenne, Iroquois, Chicago, Detroit, armoire, chauffeur, decor, critique, souvenir, sabotage, chandelier, jeopardy, juggler, lacquer, label, lemonade, liquor; lion, liege, matte, mock, magnolia, medicine, and mold; oracle, pervert, petite, pounce, quiet and quote. The list goes on and on, and don't think I wasn't tempted to too.

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Featured Comments from:

Comments

[Jez Cunningham]

Much to the chagrin of the French, the lingua franca of the web is English.

[Luke]

Do you pick up your camera in your time off? Or is that work?

[robert e]

I've yet to read the long post, but I wanted to wish you a bon weekend and share this treat from my morning, though I'm sure you've encountered it before:

***

[Spoiler alert if you play Artle.]

***

It's a portrait of Eugene Atget by Berenice Abbott https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104JJM

Like you, I have a soft spot for photographs of photographers. In this case, it's also a portrait of an idol by a fan. Supposedly, Abbott was new to cameras, but I think she did a great job here. I assume she intended to crop; maybe a lot.

Abbott was the topic of today's Artle, the online guess-the-artist game hosted by the National Gallery, which I enjoy and play almost every day. https://www.nga.gov/artle.html

[Jim Freeman]

Words from the French: most English words that end in “tion.”

[Dave]

I always wonder about that term "loan words" - when are we ever going to give them back :)
Dave.