The Saturday briefing
IS THERE anything you are desperately yearning to know? Are there any pressing factual disputes you would like us to help resolve? This is the page where we shall do our best to answer any questions you throw at us, whatever the subject.
QWHAT happened to the singer Kamahl? He was from Australia and sang Daisy A Day in the 1970s?
AKAMAHL is the stage name of Kandiah Kamalesvaran. At first he shortened his surname to Kamal but after successive MCs introduced him as “Camel” he changed the spelling to Kamahl.
One of his early patrons was the newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch, who tipped him £10 at an Adelaide concert in December 1958 and encouraged him to move to Sydney. When he did so, Murdoch arranged for Kamahl to perform a six-week season at the city’s Australia Hotel. After that season, he boarded with the Murdochs for two years.
His highest charting local single, Sounds Of Goodbye (1969), made the top 10 and he released a version of the song Daisy A Day, originally sung by Jud Strunk, in September 1975, as the B-side to his number one international hit The Elephant Song.
Now at 84-years-old, he is regarded as one of Australia’s most respected entertainers, having sold more than 10 million albums over his 45-year career.
He also branched out from music to star in a series of television commercials for products such as Coca-Cola and
Dilmah tea, and has made many guest appearances on popular shows, including a judging slot on The X Factor.
Kamahl has also received a number of awards including Australian Father of the Year in 1998, the Australian Centenary Medal in 2004, and was included in Australia’s “Entertainers of the 20th Century” list two years later.
QCOULD you tell me the origin of the word “Cockney” and where in London it originates from?
J Pattison, Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire
AK Stone, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire
ATHE word “Cockney” originally derives from cokenay or cokeney, a late Middle English word of the 14th century which means “cock’s egg” and denotes a small, misshapen egg. It later became adapted to refer to a town-dweller regarded as affected or puny, from which the current sense arose in the early 17th century. Nowadays, it is taken to mean a native of East London and London’s working classes in general. According to tradition, a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of Bow Bells, which refers to St Mary-le-Bow Church in the City of London. The dialect of Cockney is known for its argot, or coded language, which was born out of ingenious rhyming slang.
For example, the phrase “apple and pears” meaning stairs.
QI HAVE always wanted to know, why are all planets round?
fter maintaining a dignified silence on the matter for more than two years, the Apostropher Royal, Sir D’Anville O’M’Darlin’, has entered the Brexit debate with a withering attack on party politics in general and the French in particular. “I am reluctant to enter the squabble,” he said, “but the very future of the British apostrophe could be at stake.”
As you surely know, the post of Apostropher Royal was instituted by Elizabeth I in the 16th century to reward a greengrocer who spotted an error involving an apostrophe in a royal proclamation, thus saving the Queen from grammatical embarrassment.
Her Majesty decreed that greengrocers “may henceforth use apostrophes wheresoever and whensoever they choose” and created the post of J Muir, Irvine, Ayrshire
AWHILE planets may come in different sizes, they are all round because of gravity. When our solar system formed, the pull of gravity gathered billions of pieces of gas and dust, forming clumps which eventually grew into planets.
The force of the collision of these pieces caused the newly forming planets to become hot and molten, continuing to pull molten material inwards towards the planet’s centre into the shape of a sphere. Later, when the planets cooled down, they stayed in their circular shape.
However, they are not perfectly round because they spin. This spinning force acts against gravity and is the reason why planets like Earth bulge out more around their equators.
QDID the actor who plays The Hound in Game Of Thrones also appear in a Scott’s Porage Oats advert?
AP Robinson, Ringwood, Hampshire
WHAT an excellent eye you have. Sandor Clegane, also known as the Hound in Game of Thrones, is played by the Scottish Apostropher Royal to supervise the distribution of apostrophes to market stall traders throughout the realm. Ever since then, his Apostrophic Delegates have been seen on the second Thursday of every month (“Apostrophe
Thursday” as it is known), trundling wheelbarrows full of apostrophes through the market towns of England and Wales, scattering them to stallholders.
Also, every spring, a National Apostrophe Count takes place to check the operation of Newton’s Law of Apostrophic Conservation: that every apostrophe inserted into a work that should not have one, is balanced by an actor Rory McCann. Before finding fame, McCann was the face of Scott’s Porage Oats.
QI HAVE noticed that Japanese people call their country Nippon, while we say Japan. Likewise with Sweden (Sverige), Finland (Suomi) and Denmark (Danmark). Why is it that we call countries a different name to their inhabitants?
D Williams, Formby, Liverpool
Aby
THESE differences in country names are what is known as exonyms and endonyms. An exonym – for example Japan – is the name used only by those outside the country in question. On the other hand, an endonym – like Nippon – is the name used by a group of people to refer to themselves, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups.
Exonyms usually arise as a result of language differences, and pronunciation often plays a role in their creation. Most endonyms are unique to a certain language and when they are translated to a non-native language, they become exonyms. This can be the result of language Anglicisation, or converting them into English names. equal and opposite apostrophe omitted from a word that should contain one. These traditions are now under threat through what Sir D’Anville describes as “a misunderstanding that is historical and potentially historic.” The historical part, he explains, dates back to 1529 when the apostrophe was introduced into France in words such as “l’heure” or “l’apostrophe” to mark a missing vowel. The English thought this a good idea and adopted apostrophes widely, even initiating the possessive apostrophe, ‘s, to replace the Germanic genitive ending -es. Indeed, this became so popular, that apostrophes were a major export
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from France to England before the first Apostropher Royal started our own apostrophe factories.
The party political apostrophic misunderstanding, however, has been there from the start and stemmed from the fact that the man who introduced apostrophes into France was a French engraver called Geoffroy Tory, which has made socialists highly suspicious of apostrophers ever since. Indeed, some still persist in calling it contemptuously “the Tory punctuation mark” and shun its use.
Now the French are demanding 500 years’ back royalties for using “their” apostrophes, the Germans want compensation for the omitted letters e in their genitives, and the Apostropher Royal repeats his plea that “An apostrophe is not just for Chris’mas”. Negotiations continue.