Old soldiers never die . . .

 

Old soldiers never die . . .

 . . . they simply fade away.

Soldiers of Xerxes' army, based on descriptions by Herodotus and archaeological discoveries.

From  left to right: Ethiopian soldier with bow, Khwarazmian infantryman, Bactrian infantryman, Arian cavalryman

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 Actually, I was thinking of bloggers. Some announce that they are withdrawing from the blogging world for a variety of reasons. Their followers sympathise and hope that they can persuade the leavers to stay. Some stop blogging but continue to comment on the posts of others. Sadly, some die, leaving a space that cannot be filled. Others just disappear without a trace, leaving their forlorn followers to wonder what happened. Some come and go, often promising, when they return, that they will blog assiduously henceforth, creating a burst of activity and then retiring, exhausted, maybe to pop up again in the future with renewed resolve and possibly further intermittent participation.

Bloggers apologise. Bloggers are pleasant people. Bloggers try to encourage others. Bloggers respond to comments and visit the sites of their commenters. There are exceptions, of course.

   Many carry on for years, posting daily or weekly or monthly, sometimes on a set subject, like travel or genealogy. Others flit where the fancy takes them, often finding inspiration from other bloggers. Some posts are short and pithy, others are detailed lengthy essays. Some cause laughter while others bring on tears.

The optimists, the pessimists, the serious and the light-hearted, young, old, gregarious, solitary - all these are represented and all will appeal to someone ‘out there’.

Why do people blog? Why do you blog? There are not always simple answers to such straightforward questions.

Bloggarts

How did they get there?

One of my blog posts has sprouted 29 links. I’ve no idea how they arrived but there they are, bold as brass! A couple of them are from a blogger who has not posted anything since February 2010.

Do these links come like thieves in the night? They certainly weren’t there yesterday. The thought of A. N. Other sneaking into my laptop and creating havoc has me quaking in my boots – well, my shoes, actually. Arethere impish blogging fairies like the boggarts – I suppose they’d be bloggarts – intent on mischief?

The bloggarts take liberties with my laptop in other ways, too. There was the case of the missing cursor, for instance, and the links I appeared to have put on other writers’ blogs, but hadn’t. There’s the case of the shifting font; I will have chosen one that I like but even as I type the whole page changes to a completely different typestyle and colour that I would never choose in a million years. Suddenly, this turns into this. Sometimes it returns almost immediately but often I have to adjust it with Home, Select All. Tiresome!

Maybe I should make offerings to the great gods of cyberspace. What would be a suitable donation, I wonder?

On the other hand, perhaps it’s just Blogger playing silly fools again. It has been misbehaving this week, first not allowing me to comment on other people’s posts and then denying me access to my blog. It didn’t sulk for long but it was annoying.

Challenged!

It is politically incorrect to refer to a lack of something in someone. For instance, blind people are 'visually challenged', disabled people are 'differently abled', children with learning difficulties are 'educationally challenged'. It is good and proper that people's sensitivities are taken into account for none of us can help not having whatever facility it is that we're missing. I don't know about the rest of the working world but no-one in schools in the UK is allowed to 'brainstorm' – it might offend people who suffer from tonic-clonic seizures (that's epilepsy to you and me, or even *sharp intake of breath* FITS).
There is a risk that in an effort to avoid offence we are led into a world of bizarre euphemisms. Thus a short person is 'horizontally challenged'. A fat person is 'metabolically challenged' or 'calorie-resistance intolerant'. A man (or woman) whose hair is thinning – or absent – is 'hirsutely other'. Someone who is extremely energetic might be described not as frenetic and driven but rather as 'relaxation averse' while the counterpart would be, not lazy, but 'effortfully disinclined'.
What of chronically untidy and disorganised people? Would 'organisationally reluctant' cover their condition? The pessimist could be 'antonymically optimistic' and the slovenly slut 'obversely houseproud'. I'm sure you can think of others.
The ponder that brought about the rubbish above grew in my brain as I wandered along woodland paths with the dogs yesterday; I contemplated the sad truth that I am 'adjectivally challenged'. That is to say, I have exhausted my supply of commentarial enthusiasm. I used to encourage the children I taught to consider synonyms for 'nice' and good' and (shudder) 'brill.' ('Awesome' and 'cool' and 'wicked' and 'sad' had not yet landed in the tender brains of the young scholars.) The children would spend an enjoyably competitive time outdoing each other with ever more sublime alternatives. Now, after almost eighteen months in the outer reaches of blogdom, I have reached rock bottom and have decided that the English language requires more adjectives of approbation. I have used 'lovely', 'stunning', 'superb' and their like far too frequently. I could adopt the habit of some bloggers and use the same catch-all, anodyne phrase for every blog I visit – it would be quick and efficient but add nothing to the bloggee's sense of accomplishment – or even existence! People who take the time to comment on my efforts encourage and uplift me so I try to do the same on the blogs I visit. This is particularly important when a new blogger appears on the scene, unsure quite what to expect. Therefore I am going to invent some new adjectives and would appreciate the efforts of any of you 'out there' (and some of you really are 'out there' ;-}) to add to and improve my poor renderings.
Here are a few suggestions:- gregorgeous, supraspecial, stunningese, beautifellant, wonderbrasimax, gargantuan (okay, I know that's a 'proper' word), splendera, loveheartlifly, deepspacely . . . or maybe I'll just reinstate 'nice' and 'good' in my personal vocabulary. What say you? Anyone?