Saturday, 17 February 2024

Trolley 635

In fact two small trolleys, both Wanzl but not identical, one from the M&S food hall and one from Waitrose - where the stacks, towards the end of Saturday afternoon - were much depleted. 

Do places like M&S and Waitrose get made-to-measure trolleys from Wanzl, or did they just happen to pick out different models?

On the way to the Kokoro passage, I had passed the crooked pine on Clay Hill Green, one of three planted at the same time, one which must have been blown over in some storm - or possibly pushed over by some drunk. But the council elected to leave it - perhaps to see what happened. With the answer being that it lives, but does not thrive.

The other two, while not fast growing, are at least growing up. Presumably, at least some deciduous trees, would have put out new shoots from the bottom, one of which would have taken on the duty of the main stem, the trunk - and the tree would now be more or less as good as new. Presumably, pine trees are better at putting on growth from the top.

But why the big difference in colour between the two snaps?

Home via the Screwfix underpass, after which I came across this combo: First Line Recovery (of the custom registration plates) with Deadcert (of the paint job). With the latter being more into repossession than recovery. But why the trade plates if it was parked up near the First Line yard, just around the corner?

Home to Scrabble, which I lost on appeal. I had already failed a challenge with 'viler', not present in OED and ruled to be an improper comparative of 'vile' - although I believe it is a usage I recognise. But not by the editors of OED. After which BH thought it mean to challenge 'quora', but did mention it afterwards. Again, not present in OED and ruled to be an improper plural of 'quorum', which last was in any case marked - double barred - as foreign and so quora was disqualified on that account alone. Again, I believe it is a usage I recognise. But, sadly, I had to concede the game: my lead could not stand the loss of the doubled q-word.

And if we are being picky, quorum is already the male (or neuter) genitive plural of the relative pronoun 'qui' for who or which - so making quora the plural in the usual way of neuter 'um' nouns going to 'a' is not quite right. Even though the lazy might have thought it right enough. And one can avoid something like 'the quora of the various committees were all set so that the largest party could always raise one, without needing the presence or support of the others' by the alternative beginning of 'the quorum of a committee was always set so that...'. An example of a failing in grammar in an awkward case being smoothed over by a bit of flexibility in language.

PS 1: the nearby 'quota' is not marked as foreign, despite being a relatively recent derivative of the Latin adjective 'quotus'. Clearly a bit of a lottery which way these old editors are going to jump.

PS 2: my miniature Lewis & Short dictionary was not much help. Kennedy's Latin Primer did explain about relative pronouns. While Google's Gemini at first claimed that 'quorum' meant the same in Latin as in English, but retracted fast enough when poked. His second story being that there was no one word equivalent, which seems likely. Perhaps the Romans did not have the sort of bureaucracy that needed to worry about such matters.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/trolley-634.html.

Reference 2: https://deadcertrecovery.com/.

Reference 3: https://deadcertrecovery.com/eastract-recovery/. For an interesting looking contraption.

Group search key: trolleysk.

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