I thought this was a lovely image, even if it doesn't entirely pertain. It's called Sphinxes with Dictionary by Francine van Hove.
1) Did you know this is a magical time of year? Shmaltz aside, it must be, because of all the protections that developed for this window between Christmas and the New Year (alternatively through Epiphany on Jan 6th). Erin McKean, a real-live lexicographer and proprietor of the great word blog Dictionary Evangelist, has written for the Boston Globe detailing some of the oddness in her article Season of Superstition:
...People born on Christmas are considered either fortunate, as they supposedly cannot be drowned or hanged, or unfortunate, because they are more likely to be able to see ghosts and spirits. (Sir Walter Scott said that the Spaniards attributed the gloomy mood of King Philip II, thought to have been born on Christmas, to his frequent ghost sightings, and not - as we might imagine - to always having his birthday and Christmas presents combined.)
Some also believe that those who are born on Christmas Eve turn into ghosts on that day every year while they sleep. If you were born on Christmas Eve and don't want to have this happen to you, the remedy is to count the holes in a sieve from 11 o'clock on Christmas Eve until morning...
2) Perhaps that didn't catch your interest though, because you're too involved in assigning addresses and realistic geography to your plot-in-progress. Well, if you're writing about San Bernadino County, for example, be extra careful using a Thomas Brothers map for reference, because they've salted in over 100 fake streets to catch anyone making unauthorized duplications. Copyright traps, as they're called, are no urban legend among cartographers. As usual, the Straight Dope has the low-down.
I suggest we all borrow Cecil's excellent and pithy defense against errors in his own work.
Mistakes, my arse. Copyright traps.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Trust a Lexicographer, Cartographers, Never!
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8 comments:
I have a main character who can talk to ghosts. And I never chose a birthday for her. So, maybe Christmas Day? Fun post!
Barrie-
I love the premise of your book. Good luck. I think a 13 year-old with a Christmas birthday has yet another reason, as if she needs one, to gripe!
Maybe I'm just weird but it sound like a lot more fun to be a ghost for a night than to sit up counting holes in a sieve.
I'm with ye.
What a visual - On first glance, I thought the picture was a muse and a dictionary. But a sphinx! I reread the caption. A sphinx! Intriguing. What is a sphinx doing with a dictionary?
Are any of our current leading psychics Christmas-born?
Lots to think about while you count the holes in a sieve.
I like the painting too. I often thought one of the two most romantic 'everyday' events was to read with someone you love on a sofa, your toes curled under each other. (The other was to cuddle on a sofa while watching old black&white movies, a burning log in the fireplace, or simply the Christmas tree.)
Thanks for the map info!
What a beautiful image. My own Siamese cat looked similarly sphinx-like.
I'm intrigued about the ghosts, which is not all that surprising since the space between Christmas and New Years can be misty and gloomy.
I will never trust a road atlas again. (I know it's not actually possible, because GPS systems are satellite-based, but mine seems similarly booby-trapped.)
Clare,
Copyright traps. It all makes sense to me now.
Last year when my daughter moved from the east coast of Florida to the gulf coast. I got a couple of maps of the new area and . . . the maps differed. Some of the streets were on one and not another. Some street names had different spelling. I thought the map makers were trying to make me crazy, but it was just those good old copyright traps.
As a writer, I should have known.
Terrie
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