What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Past Tense

    Sometimes museums are terribly annoying. I found myself getting all worked up about this thurible.

    image

    Well, It wasn’t exactly the thurible that got me worked up but the card next to it.

    image

    The caption uses the past tense. “Censors were used…”

    Censors are used. It somehow felt so frustrating to look at an object that I could pick up and use in my daily work and which seemed to me to be in as good a state as when it was first made and yet see the caption speaking about the use as being something in the past.

    As I looked around the same gallery, all the references to anything liturgical were expressed in the same way:

    “Music was important in the Christian liturgy…”

    There’s no was about it.

5 responses to “Mr Provost’s Finest Reindeer Receipt”

  1. Bro David Avatar
    Bro David

    You know that English is not my first language, but I thought that when you buy something that the shop usually gives you a receipt and that the instructions regarding how to cook or bake something was a recipe.

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      You are right, Bro David in that nowadays when you buy something you get a receipt and when you cook you follow a recipe.

      However, they come from the same word and it used to be that receipt was used for a list of cooking ingredients. See for example, Ladie Elynor Fettiplace’s Receipt Books, which I think Amazon still have in stock.

      So, my use above is an archaic form of English.

      Reply
  2. Susan Sheppard Hedges Avatar
    Susan Sheppard Hedges

    Do you actually cook and eat reindeer? I would think with all the flying they do, the meat would be stringy and tough! 🙂 Seriously, though, can you buy deer at the butcher’s or do you have a friend who hunts?

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Yes, reindeer steaks for Christmas meal. Very seasonal. Delicious too.

      Any hunters around here would have to go quite a long way to bag a reindeer on the hills. (Finland?)

      These came from my local supermarket, Lidl who, being a German company often have things that others couldn’t or wouldn’t sell. (Snow chains this week!)

      Reply
      1. Susan Sheppard Hedges Avatar
        Susan Sheppard Hedges

        We have reindeer in the Northern climbs of our continent, Canada and Alaska. They are mostly called Caribou here. People do hunt regular sorts of deer in the US. My mother in her later years, had a neighbor that would bring her a prepared haunch sometimes. She said it was ‘gamey, but not bad’ which one could only expect of wild animals. I love the fact that your supermarket sells snow chains. It’s always nice to have a supplier for the emergencies.

        Reply

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