Barmy about the badger
QUESTION Who was the MP who claimed ‘There are not many badgers in the House of Lords?’
Arthur Gore, 8th earl of Arran (19101983), known as ‘Boofy’, was a British politician and the Conservative Whip in the house of Lords.
Boofy was the Lords’ sponsor of Labour MP Leo Abse’s 1967 Private Member’s Bill which, as the Sexual offences Act 1967, decriminalised homosexual acts between two consenting adult men. Gore’s elder brother had committed suicide while struggling with his sexuality.
Gore and his wife Lady Arran (nee Fiona Bryde Colquhoun, 1918-2013) were lifelong lovers of badgers, and at their remarkable home, Pimlico house, near hemel hempstead in hertfordshire, badgers were allowed to roam freely, so the family always wore wellington boots to protect their ankles from the nipping creatures.
Lady Arran called her current favourite badger rosie. Furthermore, the couple surrounded themselves with various other animals — wallabies bounced around the pine woods. Pot-bellied pigs, llamas and alpacas, caged birds, horses, a fox and assorted dogs completed the scene.
one of life’s great eccentrics, Lady Arran, usually sporting a Colquhoun tartan cap, was also a powerboat fanatic.
In 1980, she reached 103mph on Windermere in her powerboat Skean-Dhu, powered by two twin Mercury 225 outboards. this achievement earned her the highest accolade in powerboating, the Segrave trophy.
earl and Lady Arran campaigned for animal protection, and Boofy piloted the Badger Protection Bill through Parliament. While the Sexual offences Act 1967 was passed, the badger Bill failed, and when asked why, Boofy memorably replied: ‘there are not many badgers in the house of Lords!’
Ellen Highsome, Nottingham.
QUESTION Does the word spinster have anything to do with weaving?
When ‘spinster’ first entered english in the mid-1300s, it did indeed refer to a woman who spun thread and yarn.
Its earliest use comes from the allegorical poem Piers Plowman: ‘And my wyf ... Spak to þe spinsters for to spinne hit softe’ (and my wife...spoke to the spinners to spin it soft). In the Middle Ages, the term spinster became recognised in law as it was common to use one’s occupation as a surname on legal documents. the change in the word’s meaning to signify an unmarried woman was probably an economic one.
In the late Middle Ages, married tradeswomen had greater access to raw materials and the market (through their husbands) than unmarried woman, so unmarried women ended up with lowerstatus, lower- income jobs such as combing, carding, and spinning wool. thus, by the 17th century the meaning of the word had shifted to refer to an unmarried woman.
By the 19th century the term had shifted further, perhaps influenced by authors such as Charles Dickens, alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who was unmarried, childless and prissy.
Spinster is an unusual word in that it is the only word to have retained the suffix
-ster in its original feminine sense. the old english version of - ster was used to form feminine nouns, while the old english version of the suffix -er was used to form masculine nouns. In the 15th century, the - ster suffix gradually began losing its feminine identity, but a new suffix, ‘- ess’, showed up to replace it. the old words ‘seamster’ and ‘songster,’ for example, became ‘ seamstress’ and ‘ songstress’. the exception to this etymological evolution is ‘spinster’. Rachel Powers, Chard, Somerset.
QUESTION British dogs go woof! woof! and French dogs go gnaf! gnaf! How do other countries translate their pooch’s calls?
ANIMAL sounds are generally based on onomatopoeia, the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named. Well-known examples include sizzle, cuckoo, hiss, buzz and thud.
While the same system is used around the world, different languages and accents have led to a wide variety of interpretations of dog noises.
even in english there are a number of different words used for a dog’s bark, for example, ‘woof-woof,’ ‘ruff-ruff’ and ‘bowwow.’ Many languages also have different words for the barks of large versus small dogs, thus ‘yip-yip’ or ‘yap-yap’ are used for small dogs.
here are some examples from around the world: Arabic — hau-hau or how-how; Armenian — haf-haf; Bengali — gheugheu or bhao-bhao; Chinese-Mandarin — wang-wang; Czech — haff-haff; Danish — vov-vov or vuf-vuf; Icelandic — voff-voff
Laurie Tyler, Southport, Merseyside.
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