Hic, haec, hoc

Hic haec hoc
Huius huius huius
Huic huic huic
Hunc hanc hoc
Hoc hac hoc

Hi hae haec
Horum harum horum
His his his
Hos has haec
His his his

Do you old Latin buffs out there remember these paradigms, and having to chant them each morning?? Well, Charlie was so excited about his newly acquired passion for the Latin language that when, on arriving in Dodge City with his friends, they came upon a mysterious old inscription nailed to a hitching post, he was excited to try his hand at translation. This is what the sign read:
TOTI
EMUL
ESTO
O.K. This should be easy, thought he. It looks like the newly learned dative case of totus + emul, like simul, simultaneously? + some form of sum, es, est, the exotic future imperative, perhaps? Unfortunately for Charlie, it was one of his friends who pointed out that the old post simply said: TO TIE MULES TO!!

...and yet another limerick

There was a young maid from Newport,
Who may not have lived as she ought.
She claimed 'twould be fun
To become a good nun
And fly over the town of Newport.

Oh the pranks that this young nun got into!
As Reverend Mother was sucking her Minto
She espied flying high
In the evening sky
The newly arrived nun from Newport.

Her whistle she blew loud and clear
As the young novice flew through the air,
Loop de loops and a dive
Completed by five
Which finished the young nun's career!

Moss

We've had plenty of rain for the past month or so, which, for some of us, has been lovely. The rain makes everything so green and vibrant and drippy. The ferns on the edge of our woods have never looked so radiant, and when the sun comes out in the evening it heightens the effect. Of course, the moss is thick and rich and covers every square inch that never sees the light of day. There's a place down by the river where trees have long ago fallen, tree on tree, as if in a tornado; and there they've lain, year on year, for decades. They are simply dripping with moss, and I wonder at the amazing life-forms they harbour.
So, I looked up this old word "moss' in the dictionary, and certainly wasn't surprised to read that it is 'any of various green, usually small, non-vascular plants of the class Musci of the division Bryophyta.' All very interesting, no doubt, but my eyes slid down the column and landed on 'mossback', and was absolutely fascinated to learn that a mossback is '1. an old shellfish or turtle(!) with a growth of algae on its back, and 2. an old, large, or sluggish fish, and 3. one extremely conservative or old-fashioned.' It was as if I was standing in front of a watery mirror! This is exactly how I've been feeling for at least a week: old, large and sluggish! I even mentioned to My Best Friend the possibility that I'd been bitten by the African tsetse fly which, by way of the infamous trypanosome, causes, among other nasty diseases, sleeping sickness. But this is not so at all. I am merely feeling the effect of all this rain, and have turned into a dear old mossback! What a relief!