The window-washers of Walden

[sovay]

The only excuse I can offer for posting the following interchange is that I've been translating a marvelous children's book into Latin for the last three hours and there is nothing currently resident in my cerebral cortex except how to talk about crocodiles and ducks in language Cicero would recognize.

fleurdelis28: The latest [e-mail spam] characters are: Trust C. Cordless, Harvey Bray, Pommeling H. Blowout, Babushka D. Bricklaying . . . Inconvenience K. Merck, Acknowleged F. Expedition, Charlotte Ikotin, Alta Atwood, Steps M. Dublin, Grady P. Kirkland, Edward G. Biggs, and Emerson Montoya.

Me: I think Emerson Montoya must be Inigo's philosophical cousin.

fleurdelis28: My name is Emerson Montoya. You fogged my Transparent Eyeball. Prepare to be Windexed.

Maybe I should figure out how to say that in Latin . . .

[edited 2005-04-22 16:43]

Emerson Montoya me uocant. Nebulosum fecisti limpidum meum oculum. Parate te ad uindexationem.
—Josh Burson

Awesome.

Comments

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

You fogged my Transparent Eyeball. Prepare to be Windexed.

Oh my. Thanks to you both for brightening my morning.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

You're quite welcome!

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Trust C. Cordless- the low quality version of the trust E Cordless phone... Trust that it got a C at the quality control tests...

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

An off-topic question: what does sovay mean?

[sovay]

She's the eponymous heroine of a ballad of which I am rather fond; Touchwood does a very nice version, as do Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick. (I never really imprinted on Pentangle's version the same way, although I think it's somewhere on my computer.) Dressed as a highwayman, she meets her true love on the road and sticks him up: demands of him all the valuables he carries, including a diamond ring that she herself has given him. He hands over his watch and his gold, but refuses her the ring. It's a token from his true love, he won't part with it, shoot and be damned: and so she rides away. Next morning in her garden green / Young Sovay and her true love were seen / He spied his watch hanging from her clothes / Which made him blush, lads, which made him blush just like any rose . . . So she gives him back all that she took from him in her man's guise, and adds that it's a good thing he was so true to her, because if he'd given her the ring—I'd have pulled the trigger, I'd have pulled the trigger and shot you dead.

The name "Sovay" is also a variant form of Sophie, and "Sonya" is originally a Russian diminutive of Sophia. So it bears some genetic relationship to my own name. And it all goes back to Greek in the end.

[sovay]

Thank her. I'm just the straight man. : )

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the explanation. I've never heard of it before, and I would like to hear it now.

it all goes back to Greek in the end
O everything does. I firmly believe it.

[sovay]

It's a great ballad. If you provide me with some kind of e-mail address, and are not averse to judicious amounts of internet piracy, I can send you a copy.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

With all due respect, I wasn't aware you were either. ;P

[sovay]

Sha. It's my secret identity.

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

That would be very nice of you.
koreil at lycos dot com
Thank you for that.

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. That is a cool song; I like it.