What is in your cup?

[CRussel]

I just love it when I get a tea order. Especially when it has a new tea! Or a yummy old friend I haven't had in a while.

Peet's Anniversary Breakfast Blend. An old favourite. But nearly time for their Holiday Breakfast Blend - a less dependable tea, since about every other year they take the blend in a direction that doesn't work as well for me. But it's still fun to see what this year's blend brings.

[cromag]

Second tea is waiting in the kitchen on a slow-starting day!

[Stitchawl]

While on the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While on the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While on the road to sweet Athy
A stick in me hand and a drop in me eye
A doleful damsel I heard cry,
Johnny I hardly knew ye.

With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and drums and guns
The enemy nearly slew ye
Oh my darling lad, Ye look so bad
Johnny I hardly knew ye.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFUTHcjiZGo )

Good morning, everyone! Another Saturday, and almost time to head off to war. The Chiang Mai Fencing Club will have some visiting fencers today, folks from a club down in Bangkok, up here to challenge us for all the gold in the Kingdom and the hand of the fair maiden! This requires copious amounts of Taylors of Harrogate's "Yorkshire Tea" and bowls a'plenty from the Food Lady to get me ready! Don my helm and hoist my shield!




Stitchawl

[CRussel]

Good morning. A grey and humid day, with overnight showers mostly gone, but no sun to dry things up. I did a quick log in to the network at work this morning to discover that something had eaten a bunch of disk space on a critical server, so I've been juggling and cleaning for the last several hours. Better now, and pulling a clean backup while I sip some Peet's English Breakfast Blend tea.

[CRussel]

Sparkling wine to go with the homemade pizza.

[kindlekitten]

Sparkling water

[Stitchawl]

Bombay Sapphire on the rocks. (Note to self... don't use limestone again.)


Stitchawl

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

Bombay Sapphire on the rocks. (Note to self... don't use limestone again.)
Stitchawl

Anniversary Breakfast Blend as I get read for the slog in to the office for two days.

[kindlekitten]

Are you talking about the rocks you freeze Stitchy?

[cromag]

Hot tea on a chilly day.

[Stitchawl]

Four in the morning and the water is pouring down
Stove don't work and my baby has just just left town
I'm lying on my back cause there just ain't nothing to drink no
Empty bottles on the floor
Dirty dishes in in the sink
Watching a cockroach crawling in an old bean can
He said when your baby left you I bet it's tough to be a man
Tough to be a man baby tough to be a man

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS-UJGju6Q0 )

Good morning, everyone! Strange night... 4am.. both of us awake, racked with 'fever chills,' sweating buckets... thought we had malaria... soaked the bed... yet neither of us felt sick! Both of us overslept this morning too. Extra two hours. Really strange. Trying to analyze it later, we realized we'd both been bitten several times by some sort of insect or spider at the restaurant where we ate lunch while on a motorcycle ride through the jungle during the day that must have caused the reaction. Bizarre! But that's life as usual for us!

Back on track now, with some "English Breakfast" tea from Viang Joom On, and getting ready to tackle the wiring of a double pole/six throw rotary switch. for a new design test box!

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

Are you talking about the rocks you freeze Stitchy?

Depends on who's the listener... The problem starts with my wife. Or me. Or inter-cultural marriages in general. She's not a native English Speaker. In fact, her English is about as good as my Applied Astrophysics. So when I use an English idiomatic expression she often takes it literally. Hence... 'why you put rocks in drink, dear?' Or "Crab Cakes?!? Not for birthday, dear. I wan chocolate!" It's been a fun 19 years...


Stitchawl

[kindlekitten]

Lol! I would think that at least one of you would be fairly fluent in the other language by now! You know, pillow talk and all! (That's how I picked up most of my German *g*)

[cromag]

Finishing the Coke Zero I picked up at the grocery store.

[Stitchawl]

Capt. Morgan rum, by gum!

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

Lol! I would think that at least one of you would be fairly fluent in the other language by now! You know, pillow talk and all! (That's how I picked up most of my German *g*)

Not only several years of pillow talk on a few different pillows before getting married into the language, and several years of Japanese language classes... plus 19 years together with my wife... I still have the Japanese vocabulary of a five-year old! I think I speak better Thai than I do Japanese! It's MUCH easier. So is the Malay language. Need to make a word 'stronger?' Just double it. 'He runs very fast' becomes 'he runs fast fast.' Exactly the same = same same.

But frankly, after 15 years as an English professor in a large university in Japan, I don't understand how ANYONE not born into the language can learn it!
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From ‘desire’: desirable - admirable from ‘admire’,
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with ‘shirk it’ and ‘beyond it’,
But it is not hard to tell
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker”,
Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor”,
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don’t mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you’re not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
Don’t peel ’taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget ’em -
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight - you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess - it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche! -
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying ‘grits’?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!


Stitchawl

[CRussel]

Very true.

In the office today, so a limited selection of good teas. But enjoying a mug of Lion Mountain Keemun.