Well, we had our first choir practice of the season last night and it seemed slightly weird to be singing Christmas music when it's 20 degrees Celsius outside. It was fun, though, and good to be back with all my choir buddies. Since this season falls within Canada's 150th birthday year, our director picked out pieces that were all composed and/or arranged by Canadians. One of these is Taladh Chriosda ("the Christ Child's Lullaby") a traditional Gaelic carol arranged by Canadian composer Mark Sirett. It's quite pretty, but I'm struggling with the pronunciation of the Gaelic, because none of the words seem to be pronounced the way they're spelled. This is particularly lowering for me: of Scottish descent, with a grandfather from Cape Breton who spoke Gaelic, and lover of all things Scottish; I've even visited the auld sod on two occasions- the second time spending three weeks hiking in the Highlands. And I'm struggling to sing a Gaelic lullaby. How embarrassing... I'm thinking that I should perhaps take an online Gaelic course, if I can find the time. In any case, this is the arrangement we're doing, except with mixed choir instead of all women: Taladh Chriosda Mo ghaol mo gradg is m'edudail thu Gur m'iuntas ur is m'eibneas thu! Mo mhacan alainn, ceutach thu! Chan fhui fhein a bhi ad dhal. Mo ghaol an tsuil a sheallas tla! Mo ghaol an cridh tha liont le gradh! Ged is leaneabh thu gun chal Is lion mhor buidh tha ort tafas. Alleluia (Translation) My joy, my love, my pride you are! My new treasure, my pleasure you are! My lovely beautiful son, I am unworthy to bear you. Alleluia. Pure son of hope and light you are! Of love the heart and eye you are! Though you are but a tender baby I bow in adoration to you. Alleluia. Related Posts:Where Did It Come From? While working on my review of A Damsel In Distress last week, I used the expression "three sheets to the wind" in reference to Percy. Of course, this means 'extremely drunk' and I've always known that it was a nautical expression, but I found myself wondering what exactly it meant and where it originated. I had rather assumed that the "sheets" in question were the sails, but as it turns out, I was wrong. They are actually the ropes that hold the sails. It is a shortened form of an old English word sceatline or "sheet-line" which has the root word sceata, which means the lower part or corner of a sail. If one line- sheet- comes loose, the ship will lose wind power. If two or three sheets are off and "in the wind," the sails will flap wildly and the ship may become hard to control. Sailors apparently started at sometime to use this as a scale to determine exactly how drunk someone was: one sheet to the wind is a little tipsy and three sheets to the wind means reeling and falling down drunk. The earliest written mention we have of this expression is in the journal of Rev. Francis Asbury. Asbury was a British Methodist who, in 1771, went to America and spent the next 45 years traveling about the frontier preaching. He kept a journal which was later published- along with his letters- in a three volume set. One entry from 1813 describes an incident in Kentucky: You may notice that he wrote "in the wind" rather than "to the wind"... it appears that this was the original expression, which over time was changed slightly. Pierce Egan, an English journalist from around the same time period as Asbury, included this version of the expression in his journal Real Life In London in 1821, writing: "Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind." The earliest use of the idiom in a novel that is known of is found in Scottish writer Catherine George Ward's 1824 book The Fisher's Daughter: "Wolf replenished his glass at the request of Mr. Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in the wind, was likely to get to three before his departure." In Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel Treasure Island, the character Long John Silver uses a slightly modified version of the expression: "Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober." So this is the origin of the idiom "three sheets to the wind"; it's nautical in origin, but not quite the way I originally thought. Related Posts:That's right- I'm making Star Trek pillow cases for a fellow TOS fan. I regret nothing.
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