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Showing posts from May, 2018

On the naming of things

Maria thought of plants at school - beans in jam jars... and mustard and cress on bits of flannel.  But what I like, she thought, is not all that but the names of things.  And every single kind of thing having a different name.  Holm oak and turkey oak and the sessile and pedunculate oak.  Sessile and pedunculate... 'What?' said Mrs Foster. 'Nothing.' Holm oak - quercus ilex I have on my bookshelf a faded paperback in a cracked plastic cover.  On the front cover, a girl with windblown hair gazes into the distance; below her, small silhouetted characters in top hats and Victorian dresses parade on a beach; and under them are grey stones with swirly ammonite fossils etched on them in white.  The title, in block capitals, is A STITCH IN TIME by PENELOPE LIVELY. I had never given much thought to the author until I happened upon a book in the library called Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time , also by Penelope Lively.  Despite the references in the title,