I let the goats outside because it wasn’t very cold. There isn’t much room for them to gallop around, but it makes a pleasant change, I thought.
It may have made Vesla slightly agoraphobic. She retreated under the little stabbur where we keep their food.
It’s quite cozy under there if you’re her size.
A Bad Guide 
Vesla is my favorite goat ever.
I’ll tell Misty you said that.
What’s not very cold in your terms ?
I think yesterday it was about -3C. Anything below -7C is acceptable to me at the moment. It’s also good for skiing.
Bahhhh. As if Hat had any other goats in his life.
It’s like saying Crown is my favourite Norwegian architect (he is!).
She is a very pretty goat, though.
Architect? You’re my favourite Dane!
How silly (Sili?) most of us are. The goats are beautiful I only wish all your photos were in focus (sorry to mention it). Is the goat house actually a cache? I hadn’t seen it before as a thing with a space UNDER IT. And…er…[or uh, for the rhotic or non-rhotic]…you’re not actually Norwegian, are you? As a person who was married by (not to) Jeff Smith, the later-possibly-discredited television Frugal Gourmet chef…. Jesu, things get complicated…I have an American-ly distorted view of who/what is “Norwegian”. He always claimed he – and/or his recipes were Norwegian. I seem to remember one {I refuse to look it up} for Norwegian spaghetti salad. NON NON NON! -and he was a friend…{I must learn how to post things in Bold Majuscule Italic} But I’d say you’re not. Too late to deal with these nuances. The goats are WONDERFUL. I want them. Sigh.
Right, sorry, stupid me. The stabbur is a cache, and the goat house isn’t. Probably we’ve been through this before. The brain goes into abeyance and lets Google and Wikipedia take over.
This may be fatal for mankind. Ultimately.
Yes, I’m sorry that one’s not in focus. I only noticed it after I’d posted it and then was in two minds about removing it.
Why was Jeff Smith discredited? Wasn’t he really as frugal as he had claimed to be? Shame.
No, I’m not Norwegian. I ‘m half-Australian & grew up in England, it’s all in the “About” section, called “Crown”, above.
It is alleged that Jeff Smith had a thing for the teenage boys that helped in his kitchens.
I remember an episode where he had two children on the show “helping”, a white boy and a black girl. He fawned over the boy and was really beastly to the little girl, she kept her poise though. After that I never liked him. Better to watch the guy with the red suspenders cook squirrels.
Poor old Jeff, then.
I’m so sorry that you didn’t write Better to watch the guy who cooks squirrels with red suspenders, Nij. You weren’t trying.
I think I love Vesla best, too, but that’s because she’s small and seems to be the odd goat out. And just an odd goat in general (which is absurd for me to say — what do I know from goats?). But I remember one of the first pictures on this blog, of Mr Crown hugging Misty (Holly?) when she was a wee thing, and I fell in love with her, too.
Yes, that was Misty. Everyone kept saying what an exceptional goat Holly was–and she is, she’s the leader of the pack–but I always liked Misty, partly because she seems to like me. Misty’s the smart one, the best communicator. Vesla is an eccentric goat, but popular with us too.
You understand I don’t actually cook, I just watch the programs for amusement, or I did back before they changed TV so that mine doesn’t work any more.
I found him now. He’s the “Cajun Chef”, name of Justin Wilson, and I see he’s unfortunately deceased now. His accent is mesmerizing:
I’m really enjoying the design of the utilitarian stuff–the way the goat fence goes up in three levels with the screen only part way to the top, and the snow on top of that–sometimes nature adds touches that would be impossible to plan (I find this in the garden especially). Also the colors on the goat feed stabur–the handle used to close the door reminds me of the little blocks of wood rotating on a nail that were used in American outhouses (and on the midwestern farm an “outhouse” is a toilet) to latch the door from inside.
Thanks for that clip, Nij; his accent is indeed wonderful.
And I’ve just realized – they can’t “gallop”, surely? They must obligatorily caper, no?
Nij, thank you. I’ve used quite a lot of thought and energy on that stuff over the years. You’re absolutely right that it’s nature that makes the difference, otherwise it’s just a pile of wood and metal. And I love those little piles of snow that remain on the tops of things, too. It took ten years for the green stuff we’ve planted to develop big roots; now everything grows like crazy as soon as the spring comes.
My daughter is the gait expert. She says our dog can do all the gaits from walk through gallop, but I’ll have to ask her about the goats. Vesla can gallop, but I can’t remember seeing the others do it.
Nijma: Great accent, but so strong I can’t understand the punchline about right-handed. Can you translate please?
I too missed the punchline (and quite a bit of the story) – strong accent plus starting to laugh = unintelligible.
His papa won’t let him chunk (?) right handed because “I tear ’em up too damn bad, I guarantee”
– or at least that’s what I heard. ?
I heard it as Catanea did.
I hear the same. chunk is regional (Northerners say chuck when the verb means ‘throw’); it’s used throughout the Gulf States: there’s a map in DARE.
“I guarantee” is Wilson’s tag line, in case that wasn’t clear.
Oh, chunk is like chuck! Of course.
You’re right, Nij, it’s mesmerizing.
If the francophones can’t get it I don’t know that I can do much better, but here’s a guess. I’m not a hunter, but I would imagine it matters if you can hit the animal without spoiling the meat, especially if you’re desperate enough to eat squirrel, and to send your children to poach them. The joke depends on a child upstaging an adult at hunting skills, so it’s saying the child has such good throwing skills that he would put a large enough hole in the animal to ruin the meat if he used his more powerful arm.
Yes, in the north we would “chuck” a rock at something, meaning to throw without aiming carefully or in a disinterested way; I didn’t even think of it like that.
I notice the way he was counting, the boy was “about 13 or 12 year old” and “got about 16 or 15 squirrels”. We would say the smaller number first [assuming I know how to speak my own dialect(s)].
My undergraduate mentor, who liked to follow the French in Illinois (hence the field trips to places like Prairie du Rocher, and Calhoun County), once mentioned about the Cajuns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajun
that they had had a difficult series of migrations that many did not survive, first from France to Acadia in Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadian
and then to New Orleans.
The narrator certainly did not have a French accent that might have made it easier for a francophone to understand his English.
The “Cajuns” were emigrants from France who moved to Acadia (the shores of Nova Scotia and new Brunswick in Canada), and after about 150 years of peaceful existence, the ones in Nova Scotia were expelled by the British governor when their territory fell to the English during French-English wars. Some of the Acadians were deported to Louisiana which at the time was French territory, and many stayed there. Others ended up in prison ships in England, or back in France where there was no room for them. After the wars were over, many Acadians tried to return to Acadia, where their fertile lands had been given to British settlers, so they had to become fishermen on barren coasts. Some of the Louisiana Acadians also tried to return to Acadia. A number of books, both fiction and non-fiction, have dealt with their trials and tribulations. One of them is Longfellow’s “Evangeline”.
A few of the Nova Scotia Acadians sought refuge with the local Micmac Indians, with whom they had coexisted peaceably as they occupied different niches and did not compete for territory.
after about 150 years of peaceful existence, the ones in Nova Scotia were expelled
So by the time of the ethic cleansing, they pretty much spoke English. Probably some of the food was still French. I don’t know how I understand the video. A lot of the words I’ve never heard, or at least never heard used like that before, but I do understand it. I don’t know what he says right before he starts eating though. If not from French, where does his language come from?
I’ve used quite a lot of thought and energy on that
You mean you can’t just pick it up from Ikea Norway? Just kidding. After the way that kitchen shelf got organized by shape color balance and I don’t know what else, I knew.
It took ten years for the green stuff we’ve planted to develop big roots
The stuff I plant takes about 2 years before it’s ready to divide, I plant everything in the Gertrude Jekyll style with two feet of peat moss under it mixed with fertilizer, compost, and whatever else I’ve got.
I don’t know what he says right before he starts eating though.
I hear, “Let me see then now, I done sopped up a little here.”
So by the time of the ethic cleansing, they pretty much spoke English
NO! The peaceful coexistence was between French and Indians. The war was not finished, there was no English-speaking population there to speak of, and the English officers were afraid that the Acadians would side with the French army against them. Actually the Acadians just wanted to be left in peace and did not intend to take sides, but the English commander Lord Cornwallis required all the men to swear an oath of allegiance to the English crown, and when they refused, the whole Acadian population was evicted (he was reprimanded by the government in London for this excess of zeal, but by that time the Nova Scotia Acadians had been dispersed). This did not happen in New Brunswick, where the local Acadian population (nowadays 30% of the province) had some troubles but at least was able to stay.
It looks like the Acadians, and later the Cajuns, spoke 17th c French up until the 1920’s or so,
http://www.acadian-cajun.com/clang.htm
and less than 5% of Cajuns now speak French as their primary language. The closest thing I have heard to what he is speaking is Iowa rural dialect, but it’s not all that close. Maybe it’s a more southern dialect….
I done sopped up a little here.
Oh, I see. He has soaked some bread in whatever he was cooking, and is using the bread to scoop it up.
AJP, my last comment went in the spam queue.
Heavens, I’ll try and rescue it…
How to rescue:
When you go to the “Dashboard”, look at the first box that says “Right Now”. At the bottom you will see something like “Akismet has protected your site from 40,233 spam comments already, and there are 20 comments in your spam queue right now.” When you click the number of spam comments, it will take you to the section where you can edit spam. As you mouse over a spam comment, a menu for it will appear and you can select “not spam”. The comment will then go into the “pending” area (right below “Edit Comments”) at the top of the page where you can click on it again and mark the comment “approved”.
In the last day or two I have found several comments in my spam queue that were not spam. I suppose they are tweeking their filters again.
Thank-you. While you’re all so technologically sophisticated, can anyone tell me what I should’ve done to stop my apostrophe in ’em from becoming a single open quote? Here in “Leave a comment” it’s a straight vertical thang (here), but when I hit “Submit”, what will happen?
Hah! Yup. There it went.
And nobody seems to think goats are obligatorily capering? I’m surprised.
I think capering is a perfect description, one that I would never have thought of myself, for the way they dance around. They have other gaits too, so they’re not obliged to caper.
The only thing I can suggest is to try copying & pasting one that’s the right way round. Or perhaps there’s something interesting available in the Special Characters (under Edit).
Nij, I found your comment, said it wasn’t spam–and then it disappeared. I’m sorry, I’ve no idea where it went. Now I’ve found it there again and approved it again. We’ll see what happens.
Okay, I’ll look. Erm…goats…caper…cabra…Capricorn…
as far as I know (etymological fallacies notwithstanding) capering is what goats do.
Sorry, I’m in a temporal displacement somewhere. Has anyone noticed Professor Pullum typing “linging” when he probably meant (I assume) “linking”? I think linging must be something very important to linguistics. Perhaps it is the capering of linguists.
I like Geoff Pullum very much, but I don’t read Language Log. Sorry I missed the Latin; tragically, and thanks to the helpful people at Language Hat, I only think of the Greek these days (aig-).
Nope, it didn’t come back.. I tried it on a test blog too and same thing, but I was able to retrieve it with much tinkering. I suspect there’s something about the link it doesn’t like. I’ll try it again with the link separate.
lost comment:
It looks like the Acadians, and later the Cajuns, spoke 17th c French up until the 1920’s or so, and less than 5% of Cajuns now speak French as their primary language. The closest thing I have heard to what he is speaking is Iowa rural dialect, but it’s not all that close. Maybe it’s a more southern dialect….
I done sopped up a little here.
Oh, I see. He has soaked some bread in whatever he was cooking, and is using the bread to scoop it up.
Link from lost comment:
http://www.acadian-cajun.com/clang.htm
Now it’s up there, Nij. It was in a section marked “Pending”–of all the silly names, pending what? Our dying of old age?
Yes, I believe goats caper, by definition, but Catanea is too nice to mention the word cabrón, an unladylike word for old goat.
Here’s the etymology for caper:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=caper&searchmode=none
and don’t forget to click on “cab” where you will find:
Oh good, it’s unstuck, I thought I wrote pending, but after all that, I don’t know if the comment is momentous enough for all the effort.
It’s about the Cajuns though, if it’s not from French, and it doesn’t really sound southern to me, I suspect they have some sort of Ozarks accent.
Fr. cabriolet (18c.), dim. of cabrioler “leap, caper”
Cabriolet is a noun, a diminutive of cabriole “leap, caper” as a noun; cabrioler is the verb “to leap, to caper”.
I suspect they have some sort of Ozarks accent
Definitely not Ozarks. My father’s family are from the Ozarks, and trust me, they don’t sound anything like that.
The Ozarks look (looks?) very pretty in the Wikipedia photographs. It says the word comes from French aux arcs.
It says that the word may come from aux Arks (related to Arkansas but not to arc) or may come from aux arcs (unrelated to Arkansas and referring to either natural archways or rainbows.
Oh, all right then. But I don’t believe the first explanation; if it were Arkansas, why would it be plural? I don’t think the French would have thought that Arkansas was the plural of Arkansa. What happened to the other one?
I’m betting on Occam’s razor: Ozark and Arkansas can’t be a coincidence.
See also Arkham’s razorback.
I’ve found this: http://www.louisiane.culture.fr/fr/ow_cartes/ow_prov.html which seems to indicate that the French settlers did call their Louisiana provinces “Les Arkansas” and “Les Illinois”.
Wikipedia … says the word comes from French aux arcs.
That’s the only explanation I have seen (not just on Wiki but in many other places). Aux Arks doesn’t make sense as there is no French word ark. However, it is not clear what aux arcs might be referring to. I had not thought about it, but empty’s remark gives me an idea!
The Wiki article translates Aux Arcs and Aux Arkansas as “toward the Arcs/Arkansas”, but although aux can mean “towards the (plural noun)”, that is unlikely here, where it is more probable that it means “to/at the (pl n)”. The Arkansas and the Illinois are rivers, and the natives may have been referred to in English by the names of their rivers, or more likely the opposite (eg in Canada the Ottawa river is called in French Rivière des Outawais “the Ottawas’ river”), so a fort Aux Arkansas probably meant “in/to the Arkansas’s territory”. The fact that in English “Arkansas” is prononced as if written “Arkansaw” suggests that the final s is the French plural suffix (which is not usually pronounced, but always written). If there is a relation between Aux Arcs and Aux Arkansas, it could be because Arkansa might have been interpreted as arc(s)-en-sa “arc(s)-in-sa“, a word which would be partially analyzable in French and therefore shortened to the apparently meaningful arc(s) “arcs” or “arches”, a word which could refer geological formations in the area. arc(s)-en-sa would also remind French speakers of arc(s)-en-ciel “rainbow(s)” (which makes less sense since rainbows are hardly peculiar to the area).
bruessels: the French settlers did call their Louisiana provinces “Les Arkansas” and “Les Illinois”
Louisiana at the time was the name given to a huge territory which included many Indian tribes, some of whom were les Arkansas and les Illinois.
So it could also be aux Arks meaning the Arkansas tribe, then.
Just so you know, I’ve started spelling it Ockham’s razor since I realised it’s named after William of Ockham. I’m also pretty sure he didn’t use a razor.
Update: Oh, well, I guess he probably did use a razor, I was wrong about that. I admit it.
So it could also be aux Arks meaning the Arkansas tribe, then.
Starting with the Arkansas tribe, as shortcut. This is assuming that my hypothesis is right. Since I invented it just now (thanks to empty’s remark), I won’t claim that it is the result of deep research.
Okay we’ll call it an expert’s hypothesis, that’s good enough for me.
May I ask whether anyone knows if the name of the neighboring state of Kansas is related? Ockham would like it to be, I think, yet the pronunciation is very different, and Wiki just says Kansas is named after the Kansa people who lived there.
empty, once again you come up with great suggestions! If the name Kansas is from the “Kansa people”, that seems to me to reinforce the hypothesis that the name Arkansas is from the “Arkansa” people. In that case, it is likely that Arkansas (pronounced “Arkansaw”) was first learned in English from hearing French speakers say the name, but Kansas from seeing the word written (also originally by French speakers!).