by Roseanna White | Jan 14, 2013 | Word of the Week
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| Scolding by Jose Ferras de Almeida |
I have children. Therefore I have uttered the phrase (a time or two–ahem) “Don’t talk back.” Or perhaps occasionally, “No back-talk.” But when I had a character using the same, I ran into a problem.
Back-talk, meaning “an impertinent retort” didn’t come around until 1858. Which is, I suppose, why we see phrases like “No impertinence” in older works instead, LOL. Interestingly, the phrase is believed it have originated in literary circles, when writers tried to imitate “low” Irish idioms. Who knew?
Talk back is a form of back-talk that followed it about a decade later. For some reason I thought that one would have been the original, but shows what I know, I suppose. 😉
I hope everyone’s week is off to a great start! And stay tuned–I have some good news to share with y’all later in the week. =)
by Roseanna White | Jan 10, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| Waiting by Edmund Blair Leighton |
My kids are big on holidays (so unusual for a child, I know, LOL). The day after Christmas, they asked, “What holiday’s next?” And the same question came on January 2. Several times we’ve played the Holiday Hop game, naming which comes after which. Sometimes I think that if they could, they’d just skip from one special day to the next. New Year’s to Valentine’s to St. Patrick’s Day to Easter, and so on.
I remember being the same way as a kid–especially a growing kid looking for those days off school. 😉 And you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. The Lord instituting Holy Days, after all. As celebration, as remembrances, and a way to look ahead. Just like He made the Sabbath for our rest. He knew we needed those breaks, those things to look forward to.
In a lot of ways, it’s like a book’s plot. When I’m sitting down to start a new book, I usually try to have the big points figured out–kinda like the holidays. There will be major turns at B, E, and H, say. Minor ones at A, C, and F. But a wise friend of mine once said that the real story was like an Oreo–it happens in the middle.
Life’s the same way. Christmas was a lot of fun around here. But you know what was more fun? The day after, when we got an unscheduled 8 inches of snow. When we all went to play in it, to sled ride, to spend time as a family that wasn’t pre-planned. My best memories from being a kid aren’t just the Big Days–it’s the little days. It’s following behind my dad while he raked the lawn after mowing, tossing on dandelions and leaves onto his pile and pretending it was a salad for a giant. It’s passing the summers in the pool with my mom and sister and neighbor.
So often, we’re so busy that it’s easy to put off the special things for the special days. To say “Sure we’ll do that…on our next break. The next holiday. The next…”
But if you’re anything like me, it’s the unanticipated fun, the unexpected Big Days that build the best memories, that make for the best laughter, the best stories. As we head into the new year, you can bet I’m going to be looking forward the holidays with my kids, sure–but what I’m really going to be looking forward to, what I’m going to make a big effort to appreciate, are the days in between. The normal days. The days when you’re just waiting to get through the school day, to the weekend, to the next event.
by Roseanna White | Jan 9, 2013 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
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Baltimore during the Civil War
(Yep, that’s right, apparently the whole city had a crease down its middle…LOL) |
Last week, I gave y’all a brief introduction to my heroine from my third Culper Ring book. Marietta Gaines (who will be called Mari by her grandfather and Yetta by her childhood friend, just FYI) is going to be a ton and a half of fun.
But now I need to figure out what her late husband and his brother (my villain) do. You wanna help, right? I knew it. 😉
The time is 1865. The place is Baltimore. War is raging, but neither Gaines brother was directly a part of it. They’re wealthy, and I’d like the family to be in a business such that:
- It’s perfectly reasonable that they would stay home from the war to run said business, and no one would question that
- Said business is of enough importance that both North and South would covet their loyalty
My first thought was that perhaps one of the brothers is a doctor . . . or maybe a judge (might be too young for that) . . .
Then I thought of railroads. Maybe the Gaineses are a railroading family. Could be, could be. All I know about them at the moment is that their mother is from Louisiana, hence the brothers’ first names of Lucien and Devereaux . . . and hence their hidden Southern sympathies. Well, okay, so plenty of Marylanders went Southern in the war. But everyone has to assume they didn’t, no doubt because their father was vocally Union.
Anyone have any other brilliant suggestions for the family business?
For that matter, I also need to choose a hunky actor to use as my model for Dev, to put on my Pinterest board. He has to be oh-so-handsome, in that strong way that can ooze all charm one minute and then, pow, you realize he’s dangerous. Thoughts on that? I was considering Hugh Jackman . . . maybe . . .
by Roseanna White | Jan 7, 2013 | Word of the Week
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| A Wet Sunday Morning by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1896 |
Wow, it feels like forever since I’ve done one of these! LOL. Ah, the holidays. =) But the Twelve Days and Epiphany are over, my tree is down, and it’s back to the grindstone completely this week.
One of the words I’ve had to look up in the last couple weeks and surprised me is slosh. I believe I looked it up when someone in a historical referred to someone as sloshed. A few clickety-clacks and I verified that this was a colloquialism for “drunk” by 1900, so was no problem in this particular book. But what surprised me was that slosh as a verb meaning “to splash about” didn’t come about until 1844. (I have a feeling I may have misused that in a book somewhere…) And the verb meaning “to pour carelessly” didn’t follow until 1875. Who knew they were so new?
So the adjective meaning “drunk” came from the verb, and the verb came from the noun form, which made its appearance in 1814 meaning “slush, sludge.” Which is funny, because that’s the form least-used now, methinks.
And there was have it. Not until the 1800s did this word come in to play at all, and not until 75 years after the noun did the adjective transform from the verb, so that you can say lovely things like “Only when sloshed would he slosh through the slosh.” 😉
by Roseanna White | Jan 3, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| Little Girl in a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt, 1878 |
Though this isn’t exactly the insightful post I’d hoped to start the new year with, it’s a necessary one.
Yesterday I got a call from one of the ladies in my Bible study group. We have a couples group that meets every Friday–the adults do the study, and our kids play upstairs. For the eight adults, there are approximately, oh, a gazillion kids. 😉 Okay, so 11. Lots of enthusiasm there, and we’re all so glad to be building relationships for and with our precious little ones.
One of the kids from this group is 8-year-old Hailey. At our last study before Christmas break, her mom mentioned how Hailey’s balance had seemed off, though she’d been trying to hide it. Walking very slowly, and indulging in wobbles and railing-gripping only when she thought no one was looking. Then at our Christmas party, Mom mentioned how her pupils didn’t seem to be dilating correctly. No one else noticed this when she called Hailey over and kind of laughed it off.
Apparently Hailey has gone to the doctor a couple times since–the family was expecting this to be some kind of ear infection, to be causing balance issues. But yesterday a scan showed a growth at the base of her brain stem. A growth “four pencil-erasers high.” They’re not sure yet whether it’s a cyst or a tumor, benign or malignant. She goes in today for an MRI and tomorrow will travel to the Baltimore area to see a specialist at Johns Hopkins.
Please join me in praying for Hailey and her family. Her mom was, needless to say, panicked and terrified and far more than just “upset.” And as someone who has gotten to know this little girl a bit this fall, I just ache for them. Hailey is a girl with a big, golden heart, one who loves quickly and without restraint.
Father God, we beseech you now for Hailey and her family. Though we can’t always understand Your ways, we know they’re there. Though we are baffled and shaken when such illness strikes our little ones, we know that You love them more than we ever could. Father, our healer and provider, please touch Hailey. Strengthen her for the scans and appointments, breathe Your peace into her, and touch Your finger to this growth. Make it shrink, vanish, change in whatever way it must to be nothing. Heal her, Lord our God.
And wrap Your arms around her family, please. I know this is a family that loves You so much, and I know right now they’re crying out to You in agony. Soothe them. Embrace them. Help them to feel You in every scary moment throughout this ordeal. Hold them so close that they can’t for a moment forget Who is in control.
In the name of Your precious Son we pray. Amen.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.