It's been very windy here. Nothing unusual for this area at this time of year, but this morning I was listening to a neighbor's wind chimes. They were almost playing a coherent tune. It reminded me of a musical instrument thought up by children: "It's like a glass jar full of safety pins, only you can play real tunes on it".
Wind chimes sound very different in winter. The lack of humidity makes the sound clearer, and I believe that wind direction and force is more favorable. It's really a shame that in summer when we spend more time outdoors, wind chimes don't sound as nice. The air gets heavy with heat and humidity and wind and breezes that could move the chimes are scarce. People are outside, there are lawns to be mowed, weeds to be whacked, and kids enjoy their freedom. In the winter, when there's a virtuoso wind chime performance going on with no distractions, we're all inside and don't get to hear it.
Every year I tell myself that I am going to get wind chimes of my own, but I don't. The only ones worth having are too pricey for me. It isn't worth it to buy something that's only going to fall apart after you've gone to the trouble to put it up. Today, I am thinking about it again. And thinking about spending more time outdoors. To listen to the chimes.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
An Increment of Time (?)
Yesterday, I was using the web site of our Recorder of Deeds. A message came up telling me that what I had requested may take "a few moments".
All right. I can handle "moment" in the singular. It is an indefinite increment of time - a "brief period", according to the Concise Oxford. Fine. But to put a plural on that? How can you pluralize the indefinite? How do you know whether there has been more than one moment? If someone said, okay, a moment = 90 seconds, then you'd have a rough idea of how much time "a few moments" might be.
Of course, using that reasoning, I suppose I need to lodge an objection to "one moment, please", because this implies that there can be more than one moment and that the same waiting period would involve more than one moment instead of a long moment.
I'd continue this, but I've lost momentum.
All right. I can handle "moment" in the singular. It is an indefinite increment of time - a "brief period", according to the Concise Oxford. Fine. But to put a plural on that? How can you pluralize the indefinite? How do you know whether there has been more than one moment? If someone said, okay, a moment = 90 seconds, then you'd have a rough idea of how much time "a few moments" might be.
Of course, using that reasoning, I suppose I need to lodge an objection to "one moment, please", because this implies that there can be more than one moment and that the same waiting period would involve more than one moment instead of a long moment.
I'd continue this, but I've lost momentum.
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