Tuesday ramblings #2

It’s Tuesday again, so welcome to another edition of my Tuesday ramblings! By the time this post is published, Mrs. Rhymeswith-plague and I will have bid a temporary adieu to our hearth and home and comfy surroundings in North Georgia and gone on a little “mini” three-day vacation in beautiful western North Carolina. We are joining our oldest son’s family for a short visit during their longer stay at Lake Lure. I wrote this week’s ramblings in advance and scheduled them for Tuesday publication (first time I have done this) because I didn't know whether I’d have access to a computer while we were away. My home computer is a desktop, not a laptop, and not easily transported.

This morning I saw a bright yellow and black male goldfinch in my backyard; it was on the topmost branch of a Leland (or Leyland, apparently either is correct) cypress tree. It has been nearly five years since I last saw a goldfinch. We used to see lots of them at our feeders before we moved away from our woods and creek to where we live now, Little House By A Strip Mine. I’m kidding; I’m kidding (about the strip mine, not the goldfinches). We used to see cardinals and rock doves and bluejays and rufous-sided towhees and brown-headed cowbirds and red-winged blackbirds and brown thrashers (Georgia’s state bird) and Carolina chickadees and even an indigo bunting once. Now we see mostly mockingbirds and crows and an occasional passing flock of Canada geese (honking, of course). I miss the songbirds.

Speaking of Leland (or Leyland) cypresses, one of the ten that we planted five years ago along our back property line has died. It was about eight feet tall, not as tall as the others, and just lost the will to live, apparently. It went very fast. The other nine all appear to be just fine. The one on the far left is almost twice as tall as the others. We’ve treated them all the same; I can’t explain the difference in their growth. Someone suggested on one website that the drought in the Southeast has caused dehydration among the cypresses and the dehydration has caused (or allowed) canker disease in some trees.

Which brings me to foreign coins (don’t ask me how). I saw “D. G. Regina” on a Canadian coin and figured out all by myself that it was Latin for “Queen by the grace of God,” Dei Gratia being the phrase for which “D. G.” is the abbreviation and Regina meaning, of course, Queen. Then I saw a British (United Kingdom) coin with the abbreviation “Elizabeth II D. G. Reg. F. D.” on it, which threw me for a minute...


...until I remembered that the British monarch is also head of the Church of England (Anglican) and therefore is automatically fidei defensor, the defender of the faith. (It didn’t mean Fire Department after all.)

And speaking of Latin abbreviations, most of us know etc. (the abbreviation of et cetera, “and so forth”). And we know a couple of others like i.e. (the abbreviation of id est, “that is”) and e.g. (the abbreviation of exempli gratia, “for the sake of example”) that we usually manage to get confused. The first means something like “specifically” or “this is what I’m talking about.” The second means something like “here's one example out of many from which I might choose.” Please keep this in mind in your future writing! If you had to write research papers in the dear, dead days beyond recall you may also remember et al., ibid., op. cit., loc. cit., and q.v.. One that was used frequently in those bygone days that no one seems to use any more is D. V., the abbreviation of Deo volento, God willing.

As in next Tuesday, D.V., these ramblings will continue.