Obstreperous
Dear Friends,
I am sorry that I have not been able to enjoy your delightful company for the past few weeks. The truth is: I have missed you enormously!
Thank You! again and again and again for your kind wishes and your sweet remembrances which you have sent me during my absence.
It was a Happy Day in my life when my finger clicked on the Internet Website which has the prosaic name, �ESLprintables�.
Why have I been away from you?
I would like to tell you that, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, has appointed me UK Minister of Education, at an annual salary of �200,000.
I would like to tell you, but unfortunately, I can�t, because it didn�t happen!
(However, she did write to tell me that I must send �200 for past Unpaid Income Tax.)
Seriously, for the past months I have been totally occupied, not only with my students, but in providing Full-Time Sick Care in my home. I have absolutely no free time whatsoever!
And so to the �Word of the Day�, obstreperous.
Strangely, this is a Sport�s Question, and I am uniquely placed to answer it. Why? Because I possess many Medals for Sporting Activities.
My first was �Throwing a Ball with the Left Hand�. The Gym Teacher was really jealous of me, because he was incapable of doing it. He commented: �I�d give my right arm to be ambidextrous!�
My next was �Play a Tune on your Teeth with a Pencil�. I won by rattling off Rimsky-Korsakov�s �Bum of the Flightless Bee�; followed by an encore, �The Sugar of the Fairly Plump Dancer�, by Tchaikovsky. (Incidentally, if "A Fly" has no wings, would it be called "A Walk"?)
My next was as a Cub, at a Brownie and Cub Scout Camp: �Skipping for 10 Minutes�, (with a 5 Minute Rest every Half-Hour).
My friend, Bill Carr, was disqualified because he could not �Skip Backwards�. He had his Medals ripped from his chest, his uniform removed, and he was then ceremoniously discharged from the Brownie Pack for impersonating a Brownie.
Then followed Medals for �Shot Putt�; �Hammer�; �High Jump�; �400�; �800�; �1500 Metres�; �Half-Marathon� and �Marathon�.
In our Team was a Bankrupt Contortionist. He just could not make both ends meet! We were beside a Cash Machine and he asked me to check his Balance. I pushed him and he fell over, so his Balance was obviously poor!
In the Javelin championships, (performed in the face of a strong wind), I was awarded a unique Medal. I was the only contestant whose Javelin landed 3 metres behind the Starting Line!
There were Medals for Table Tennis and Badminton. (Incidentally, in the �Badminton Horse Trials�, what crime have the horses committed?)
Finally, I won a Medal for the Pole Vault, with a huge jump. I always felt that jumping was easy, but landing was difficult.
Did you hear about the Magician who walked on Stage, opened his Brief Case and pulled out a Pole 2 metres in length? The audience applauded in amazement.
�I just curl up very small�, said his tall Assistant, Olga Poinatovsky, from Warsaw.
I have said that this word, obstreperous, of Esperanto origin, is connected with Sport, (and you can see that it reads somewhat similarly to �Hop, Step and Jump�). Those of you who have studied L.L. Zamenhof�s Esperanto Dictionary, �Esperanto in 24 Hours� will know the word intimately.
However, I read the Dictionary for only 12 Hours, (because it was my Half-Day Holiday), so I was able to read only up the letter �M�.
If I had had another hour�s reading, I would have reached the letter �O� and I would have told you the exact meaning of obstreperous.
Sorry!
Les Douglas
