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The Coffee Shop

  • Thread starter The Fallen Angel
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In some circles,certain surnames have unusual pronunciations,viz,Cholmondeley = Chumley, Featherstonehaugh =Feeston.and Mainwareing=Mannering

Now I thought Featherstonehaugh = Fanshaw

and is it Shrow or Shrew in Shrewsbury?
and does anyone still say Sisister for Cirencester?

Indeed a strange language.
 
oho typical greedy squirrel meow :oops: :cat: :conejo: :mouse:
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oho karate training meow :oops: :cat::conejo::mouse:
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oho watch out for wolfs and kitties squirrel youuuuuuuhiuuuuuuuuhouuuuuuuuuu meow :oops: :cat: :conejo: :mouse:
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oho if u wanna wash squirrel squirrel use soap and not wash only second whole squirrel meow :oops: :cat: :conejo: :mouse:
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oho its friday squirrel after party meow :oops: :cat: :conejo::mouse:
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oho truth meow :oops: :cat: :conejo: :mouse:

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Now I thought Featherstonehaugh = Fanshaw

and is it Shrow or Shrew in Shrewsbury?
and does anyone still say Sisister for Cirencester?

Indeed a strange language.
Cockburnspath, Kirkcudbright, Culzean, Strathavon, Milngavie, Bearsden ...
and that's before you get to the Gaelic ones!
 
Just listened to the opera by Verdi, "Attila the Hun". Now in the opera, Attila is poised to sack Rome, and is finally disuaded, but in the meantime, he is impressed by the courage of the beautiful daughter of a General of Rome (whom Attila has just killed). Anyway, he is so impressed he tells her she can ask him anything at all (this is the normal "fatal error" moment in all operas). She asks to have Attila's sword, so he gives it to her. She vows to him that she will return some day and kill him with his own sword. Ultimately at the end of Act 3, Attila has retreated from Rome, because of dreams and portents, which make for some cracking arias and moody choruses, and is killed by this woman with his own sword in a final scene as they both sing vigorously (because that's how operas go).

I rather feel that this is rather a better story than what really happened to old Attila. There were apparently curses and legends, but they were mainly about Alaric (the Goth) who did actually sack Rome, only to die shortly thereafter. Attila was apparently superstitious enough to worry about this, and so made peace with the emperor of the Western Roman Empire. By then he had problems with Constantinople in the Eastern Roman Empire, which was not paying him tribute anymore, and so he made plans to attack Constantinople instead. First, however, he went back to his palace on the Danube to marry some poor young thing, and at the marriage feast he drank a bit too much, got a nosebleed, and choked to death on his own blood (either that or he suffered some esophageal hemorrhage, due to drinking, and died of that. :rolleyes: :eek:

You have to think he'd appreciate going down in art, at least, as having been killed by a pretty girl with his own sword. Well done there, Verdi. :thumbup:
 
Gibbon's account of the death of Attila, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ch 37, is one of his many magnificent passages:
Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to return more dreadful, and more implacable, if his bride, the princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors within the term stipulated by the treaty. Yet, in the meanwhile, Attila relieved his tender anxiety, by adding a beautiful maid, whose name was Ildico, to the list of his innumerable wives. Their marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp and festivity, at his wooden palace beyond the Danube; and the monarch, oppressed with wine and sleep, retired at a late hour from the banquet to the nuptial bed. His attendants continued to respect his pleasures or his repose the greatest part of the ensuing day, till the unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and, after attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at length broke into the royal apartment. They found the trembling bride sitting by the bedside, hiding her face with her veil, and lamenting her own danger, as well as the death of the king, who had expired during the night. An artery had suddenly burst: and as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was suffocated by a torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage through the nostrils, regurgitated into the lungs and stomach. His body was solemnly exposed in the midst of the plain, under a silken pavilion; and the chosen squadrons of the Huns, wheeling round in measured evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the memory of a hero, glorious in his life, invincible in his death, the father of his people, the scourge of his enemies, and the terror of the world. According to their national custom, the barbarians cut off a part of their hair, gashed their faces with unseemly wounds, and bewailed their valiant leader as he deserved, not with the tears of women, but with the blood of warriors. The remains of Attila were enclosed within three coffins of gold, of silver, and of iron, and privately buried in the night: the spoils of nations were thrown into his grave; the captives who had opened the ground were inhumanly massacred; and the same Huns, who had indulged such excessive grief, feasted, with dissolute and intemperate mirth, about the recent sepulchre of their king. It was reported at Constantinople that, on the fortunate night in which he expired, Marcian beheld in a dream the bow of Attila broken asunder: and the report may be allowed to prove how seldom the image of that formidable barbarian was absent from the mind of a Roman emperor.
 
Ultimately at the end of Act 3, Attila has retreated from Rome, because of dreams and portents, which make for some cracking arias and moody choruses, and is killed by this woman with his own sword in a final scene as they both sing vigorously (because that's how operas go).

I rather feel that this is rather a better story than what really happened to old Attila... and at the marriage feast he drank a bit too much, got a nosebleed, and choked to death on his own blood (either that or he suffered some esophageal hemorrhage, due to drinking, and died of that. :rolleyes: :eek:
I can see why they had to rewrite the history to make it an opera. Even though singing vigorously while a blade guts one's entrails may sound rather unbelievable, it's not so much as doing the same thing while choking on one's own blood. :p

According to their national custom, the barbarians cut off a part of their hair...
Reminds me of Herodotus when he described how Egyptians shave their eyebrows when their household feline god passes away, a custom that I have no doubt would be approved among those who visit this thread regularly (the same goes for squirrel deities too).
 
Apart frm the Egyption goddess, Isis is the name given to the River Thames through Oxford, and some streets and buildings are named from it, as is the OU second rowing eight (racing against Cambridge's Goldie), and a number of other things in the city and university. When ISIS was a serious threat, there was a lot of debate as to whether such names should be changed, but the general feeling was it was a much older name (even if it originated as a mistake), it had been around for 5 centuries and would no doubt still be in use long after ISIS is history.
 
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