Monday 20 May 2013

Sobeit, folks


I am more than half way through my book and haven’t been sparing a thought for my blog  but there are a couple of odds and ends I want to share.   One is the word sobeit.  Is it a word?  Should it be written as three words, so be it?  I found myself using it in my current story and when I tried sobeit, thinking it would be like albeit, my spell check got all upset.  So I spelled it in three words.  Then I looked it up – apparently sobeit is a word which dates from1575 and albeit from 1385 (according to dictionary.com).  But sobeit looks silly so I decided to leave it as three words.

The story I am writing is about a woman, in England, who is doing a lot of dog walking in winter.  So obviously she wears wellington boots, a term which is always abbreviated to wellies.   But does my spell check accept this? Not a chance – at every opportunity it changes the word to willies.  My daughter finds this hilarious, to her the word is plural for a vulgar term (interjection – why do men feel the need to give names  to  their private parts?   One of those weird things no female would ever consider doing, or can really understand  - but for many women that goes for football too) but I am of a generation where the expression ‘gives me the willies’ to denote a spine creeping feeling, is a normal term.   Not to mention the strange but beautiful group of Wilis (one L, no E) in the ballet Giselle.  They always puzzled me  a little as they are described as girls who were jilted and died before their wedding days.  Well they must have been pretty feeble sort of characters – I am so glad we are made of sterner stuff these days!   BTW I am not criticizing Giselle – it is one of my favourite ballets – I saw it not too long ago at Maynardville, our local (Cape Town) open air theatre set in wooded parklands – you could not imagine a more perfect setting – also perfect for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  But I digress.  And just in case I have readers of my daughter’s generation I shall do a thorough search when I have finished and make sure no ‘offensive’ words have slipped through.

Till next time J