graaaaceeliz

[graaaaceeliz]

We've got dozens of Blacklocks and Blaylocks where I live

Do you know if Sherlock was ever actually used as a name? Or did Arthur Conan Doyle make it up?

Yes! It was an actual name of Middle English origin, sometimes a nickname for a blond person. Shir meaning bright or fair (possibly related to the root word for shine? idk) and lock meaning hair. It was more commonly a surname before the Sherlock Holmes books came out but it was occasionally a first name. An adjacent name is Whitlock, meaning white haired (or blond) which is a pretty common surname too.

[graaaaceeliz]

Oh hey, do you know what time it is? It is highly specific resource time!

Today we have the Royal School of Needlework Stitch Bank! There are HUNDREDS of stitch types in the RSN Stitch Bank.

And more added regularly, let’s look at a recent addition

I picked the first one in the 25 recently added Elizabethan stitches, the Elizabethan French Stitch

The stitch bank provides written and photo tutorials as well as a video option to learn to do it yourself. There are examples of the stitch in use, resources, references, everything but a needle and thread!

rsnstitchbank.org

[graaaaceeliz]

#calvin and hobbes

[graaaaceeliz]

snoopy of the day

[graaaaceeliz]

Boys are also easily bribed by the offer of small click-together maths blocks. This is how we speed up spelling interventions.

i bought stickers for my students today

[graaaaceeliz]

Terry Pratchett started his career as a crypto-monarchist and ended up the most consistently humane writer of his generation.  He never entirely lost his affection for benevolent dictatorship, and made a few classic colonial missteps along the way, but in the end you’d be hard pressed to find a more staunchly feminist, anti-racist, anti-classist, unsentimental and clear-sighted writer of Old White British Fantasy.  

The thing I love about Terry’s writing is that he loved - loved - civil society.  He loved the correct functioning of the social contract.  He loved technology, loved innovation, but also loved nature and the ways of living that work with and through it.   He loved Britain, but hated empire (see “Jingo”) - he was a ruralist who hated provincialism, a capitalist who hated wealth, an urbanist who reveled in stories of pollution, crime and decay.  He was above all a man who loved systems, of nature, of thought, of tradition and of culture.  He believed in the best of humanity and knew that we could be even better if we just thought a little more.

As a writer: how skillful, how prolific, how consistent.  The yearly event of a new Discworld book has been a part of my life for more than two decades, and in that barrage of material there have been so few disappointments, so many surprises… to come out with a book as fresh and inspired as “Monstrous Regiment” as the 31st novel in your big fantasy series?  Ludicrous.  He was just full of treasure.  What a thing to have had, what a thing to have lost.

In the end, he set a higher standard, as a writer and as a person.  He got better as he learned, and he kept learning, and there was no “too late” or “too hard” or “I can’t be bothered to do the research.”  He just did the work.  I think in his memory the best thing we can do is to roll up our sleeves and do the same.

#gnu terry pratchett

[graaaaceeliz]

being an eighth doctor adventures fan is so hard. how do i explain to people that i want them to read an unfinished postmodernist series of 73 pulp science fiction novels from the early 2000s that's made up of a bunch of writers arguing about how to best fundamentally deconstruct dr who as a concept

[graaaaceeliz]

#kid: miss do you have a favourite vegetable #me: yeah potato hands down no competition #kid: i thought potato was a fruit #the rest of the class: A WHAT NOW

[graaaaceeliz]

in my head the star wars equivalent of tswift is some human woman named tay’lor spiff or something and her stans are losing their minds over theories that she’s secretly a jedi singing about the horrors of war, even though she’s from a neutral system that hasn’t seen so much as a moral panic in 50 years

[graaaaceeliz]

Behind the Music 🎤 (This was a short video born after Joan brought it to my attention lol)

#how are things at home? NOT GREAT. #that made me giggle #yeah i do love this song

[graaaaceeliz]

[graaaaceeliz]

I honestly always find the term ‘spinster’ as referring to an elderly, never-married woman as funny because you know what?

Wool was a huge industry in Europe in the middle ages. It was hugely in demand, particularly broadcloth, and was a valuable trade good. A great deal of wool was owned by monasteries and landed gentry who owned the land. 

And, well, the only way to spin wool into yarn to make broadcloth was by hand. 

This was viewed as a feminine occupation, and below the dignity of the monks and male gentry that largely ran the trade. 

So what did they do?

They hired women to spin it. And, turns out, this was a stable job that paid very well. Well enough that it was one of the few viable economic options considered ‘respectable’ outside of marriage for a woman. A spinster could earn quite a tidy salary for her art, and maintain full control over her own money, no husband required. 

So, naturally, women who had little interest in marriage or men? Grabbed this opportunity with both hands and ran with it. Of course, most people didn’t get this, because All Women Want Is Husbands, Right?

So when people say ‘spinster’ as in ‘spinster aunt’, they are TRYING to conjure up an image of a little old lady who is lonely and bitter. 

But what I HEAR are the smiles and laughter of a million women as they earned their own money in their own homes and controlled their own fortunes and lived life on their own terms, and damn what society expected of them. 

#you literally CANNOT overestimate the importance of woolwork on english people throughout history

[graaaaceeliz]

Hamlet adaptation where Hamlet is a vlogger and all his soliloquies are breakdowns he uploads to YouTube

#shakespeare

[graaaaceeliz]

THE DAY OF LANGUAGES!!!

This 7th of May, 2024, we use our own language again!

If your language, native or not, is something other than English, on May 7th you can speak that language all day!

You’ll blog in your chosen language(s) all day: text posts, replies, tags (except triggers and organizational tags).

Regardless of what language people choose to speak to you, you can answer in your own.

Non-verbal, non-written languages (like sign language, dialects, otherwise non-written languages) are more than welcome! See my FAQ for tips

English native speakers can participate in any other language they're studying/have studied/know.

The tag is gonna be #Speak Your Language Day or #spyld for short.

Please submit me some language facts for me to share on this day <3

Pinned post and FAQ

[graaaaceeliz]

made some affirmations for my fellow grocery shoppers out there

[graaaaceeliz]

"no attachments" in SW literally just means "don't be selfish and possessive". that's it. that's all there is. doesn't mean jedi can't have friends and loved ones. they can. just. don't be possessive and selfish about it. don't murder thousands of people in an effort to save one.

[graaaaceeliz]

purpose of this poll: basically im wondering if my gran having a pistol was a typical american experience

#yep im not american but i live in a rural area and i went to agricollege #i was pally with some of the gamekeeper students