…sum’thing stirs in the back of yer minds when yeez hark back to when yeez were school age… for ol’ Jurassics like me, it’s further back to go than most of yeez Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… we used to have wee games and pastimes yeez never hear of nowadays… Schoolkid 1: ‘’ ‘Constantinople’ is a very big WURD, spell it”… Schoolkid 2 (Smart-Ar*se) “i-t”, ‘it’”… correct!… oh, budding geniuses we were… clever, eh, Mabel?… in a time when a living wage was a pipe dream universe away from most of the families where I lived in Dockland Govan in Glasgow, we got by with no money at all… ‘pocket money’ was never heard of… sweets and confections were usually handed out to yeez kids when yer Da came home on a Friday night, usually via the pub, and the local sweet shop, where he picked up tuppence-worth of sweets ‘for the weans’ (Eng: ‘wee ones’)… tuppence-worth went a long way back then… at weekends, when it rained, which was generally only every weekend in Scotland, for indoor pastimes, my sisters and I played with paper and pencils… this was before we ever saw the arrival of our first television set in our tenement dwelling in 1960… each of us would be given a piece of brown wrapping paper, flattened out and all nice and shiny… me Da would write down for us at the top of the page, C-O-N-S-T-A-N-T-I-N-O-P-L-E… no, it wasn’t a geography lesson, although we did know where it was… the ploy was to see how many WURDS we could make using only the letters appearing in ‘CONSTANTINOPLE’… furthermore, we were obliged to list them in columns… two-letter WURDS, three-letter-WURDS, four-, five-, and six-letter WURDS and more…
…it kept us occupied for hours… I wonder how many offspring in today’s WURLD would even contemplate doing stuff like that?… the ubiquitous mobile devices, iPhones, Smart-Thingys, computers, and the bluudy Internet have robbed the planet of most of these domestically-produced indulgences… textese has usurped the application of English spelling to a degree that may take generations to restore… maybe if we ask the modern kids to tackle the WURD, ‘M-A-L-I’, we might get a response?… but sum’how, I fear not… sigh… see yeez later… got another hundred WURDS to get out of ‘CONSTANTINOPLE’ yet… LUV YEEZ!…
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Your dad was a clever man. I wonder if that was passed down from his dad or mom. It’s nice when siblings are close enough in age to do things together.
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…my paternal grandfather, after whom my birth name is the same …James Anthony Gallacher…. was a wiz with numbers and fast humour…I would like to think both of these came down the line to my dad and p’raps a little bit to me .. 🙂
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Top steeple that post Seumas (I used your long complicated place name wurd to make two, okay I cheated with the e ) I wanted to say drawer. I think we are on the verge of the collapse of the written word, and by that I mean real writing, as in pen in hand pressed to paper writing. Her name was Cursive, and I knew her well. I’d hate to think it’s true, and we really need to bring it back into the school system.
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..CAN’T SLOPE ON IT, that man :):):)
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“If you’ve a date in Constantinople, she’ll be waiting in Istanbul…why’d they change it? I can’t say. People just liked it better that way….” Sounds like your Da and mine went to the same school… only my games were…’go on, pick a country, go to the library and research, and write a report on it…by Friday.’ Thank you, Seumas, for the memories…
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…all good stuff, m’Lady 🙂
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One more of the things the Internet has killed. I wonder if there will be a Constantinople App soon…
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..it wouldn’t surprise me..:):)
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Very good examination of the effects from the over use of technology and done in such a pleasant way. When I visit here I feel close to my dear Scottish friend whom I don’t often get to see! Thank you.
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…there will always be a warm Scottish welcome for yeez here, m’Lady 🙂
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog….. An Author Promotions Enterprise! and commented:
READERS – Here’s a “wee game” from Seumas to keep you and the ‘Bairns’ occupied… 😀
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..it truly is great fun… and terrific exercise for the mind…:):)
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Lovely. Life just used to be simpler didn’t it? Warms the heart. 🙂
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…I firmly believe it was part of my education and reasonable proficiency with the English language… that and a good dictionary beside every book I read as a child …:)
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Reblogged this on kyrosmagica and commented:
Had to reblog this from Seumas. Life used to be simpler. One to share with your kids, make you smile and warm the heart. 🙂
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This is a delightful way to spend a day and learn something. I wonder if I can get my granddaughters away from their tablets and iPads and try a game of Constantinople. 😀 😀
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..I bet they would enjoy it immensely …:)
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Sigh. Electronic toys are big competition these days. 😉
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I’ve always thought it was fun to see how many words you could make out of a big one!
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…yes, m’Lady… GREAT fun .. and surprising how many CONSTANTINOPLE produces ..:):)
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Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
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So much lost when they say so much gained. I wonder if they ever stop to think of how much interpersonal ‘play’ we’ve lost? Conversation is an art, beautiful beyond mere words. To lose it is more than a crime, it’s treason…or so say I!
Thank you Seamus, for reminding me how much I miss the challenge and pleasure of conversational intercourse 😊. Especially with a Scottish flavour.😉
Susan 💖
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…LUVZYA! 🙂
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Reblogged this on Owls and Orchids and commented:
Things were simpler then… yet we could hold a conversation with people not machines. A worthy look at what we’ve lost by gaining technology.
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