#so most of my more complex 'grown-up' vocabulary are britishisms

[memento-mariii]

OHHH so THAT's why my high school USAmerican english teacher asked me if I'd ever been to New Zealand!

The best thing about new zealand english is we get to pick and choose what we like from american english and british english.

The bad thing is that sometimes we choose wrong.

Like. Americans have fries and chips vs brits have chips and crisps. Both valid.

Here? We have chips and chips.

Youd think it'd be fine and that you can figure out which one a person is talking about from context but trust me a good percentage of the time you cannot. And often the person will try to differentiate them by clarifying they meant "Potato chips" only for them to realise a second later that both chips are made from potatoes

[benevolent-poet]

Why I Write

I write with a cigarette between my fingers on tea stained pages. I write with the sun on my back to the sounds of wild galahs cooing. The outside of my little finger smudges the black ink, leaving a cloud-like shape to discolour my skin. The remaining tea leaves a ring on the off-white ceramic, mildly scratched by the stirring of a teaspoon. I write to create a tangible timeline of my life. To look back on my growth. To plan for my next adventure in life.

I embroider pages with mixtures of neat lines and rushed cursive. I illustrate the imperfections in our world. I dance with my imagination on a page. I write to nourish myself. I encourage myself. My words are my tears whether they be joyous, passionate or sorrowful. I play with grammar and vocabulary like a child would engage in craft. I experiment with my words.

I theorise. I criticise.  I write to examine the world; to qualify it; to make sense of it; to categorise it in neat packages. I write sentences with symbolism, usually fuelled by emotion, to scribe my personal experience; to express how my mind interprets the outside world. I write as an ode to words, a tribute to the plethora of splendorous adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs, to ensure these fabulous words do not evaporate out of existence. I like poetry. I write poems to appreciate my surroundings. I write them to expose my deepest, darkest secrets. I write poems to reciprocate the rhythms of nature.

Amongst the shaky list, usually comprising of soy milk and bread, I write kind words on my skin, too. Sois gentile, I wrote most recently – be kind.  As a child I was told by grown-ups that I would suffer from ink poisoning. I am yet to notice any symptoms.

I write for my university professors. In each piece I grow a little better, more academic, more to-the-point and I expand and deepen my understanding. I write only out of necessity. I will not achieve much by polluting my work with unnecessary language, the abuse of a thesaurus and ideas that are not my own. I intend to avoid clichés, so that the piece purely reflects the thoughts that roll around my mind, formed by my own personal experience.

I write to my lover. He always sneaks in to my poetry.  Usually, sweet ballads in admiration. I write in hopes to boost his esteem. To the kind gestures and the pure heart he offers me. I write because I want to shout from the rooftops, cry out about how much I appreciate him, but that would be dangerous.  

I write to my online community. To the companions I have not met and will never meet. I have fleeting moments with passers-by and meaningful long-lasting connections with old friends.

I write music. I dream in D minor 7. I adapt my experiences in to chord formation, melodies and lyrics. The way spoken word, or music conveys emotion contrasts particularly different to written text. It is just as meaningful, but there is a certain complexity to it - the interweaving of individual elements, the tone and the emotive response that arises from it. 

I stopped writing because my words were too tangible. My thoughts were private. What if someone had read my words? The introvert in me would be appalled. Each Diary entry followed with ripping it, scrunching it up, making the words illegible. Now, writing is a useful tool for me to locate, interpret and communicate my thoughts. I find that I often experience a blank mind in a social-setting causing me to stumble in conversation. I write for reaching the final sentence means – I am free. Free from worry, free from fear.

I write for the same reason I would light incense. For some kind of spiritual cleansing. To meditate; a form of mindfulness; tranquillity; relaxation. There something about burning that is very scared. I write as an act of self-care or self-love. Words line my pages like its aromatic smoke that clouds a room. I write to become in touch with how my mind and body feels, as I describe the sensations – I can process and heal.

I write in metaphor. I write poetically. I write for meaning; to find purpose. I write about the little things. Happy things, grave things. Parfois j'écris des choses en français. I write as a pathway between my past and my future. I note where I’ve been and where I aspire to be. It grounds me. I write for I find the act cathartic; I find satisfaction in creating sentences. For clarity, for peace, for patience.

I write for her. The voice that screams to be heard. For that one time, where she had known of the fight or flight response, but she was yet to experience the freeze reaction to a traumatic situation. The pamphlets on anxiety were yet to include it. Then, it happened. And not too long after there was that freeze response. She lay still. As still as the air in that room. The air surrounding her changed in general after that incident. Polluted with disdain, fear and confusion. It sparked a change within her; a silence. A loss of innocence, loss of trust. I write for her, the shame that swallowed her and the peace she searched to find. She stopped writing for two years, that girl. The light inside her withered away. She couldn’t concentrate in school. She didn’t feel safe at home.  I write for her; the girl who grew up too fast.

I write to the moon, for only it listens to my story silently. I write to keep the fire inside me burning alight. I write to condense weeks of built up feelings in a paragraph. I write to ease the voices in my head. I write to reassure myself, to motivate myself.  I form words to be different.

I write to find god in a godless world. I write to defy police brutality. I fight for equality. I write for justice. I write for George Floyd. For all the black men and women failed by the justice system and subjected death at the fault of racism. I pray for their daughters and sons, that they do not grow bitter and hostile; that they prosper. I write as a prayer to the universe.

I write to express my gratitude to the brave indigenous peoples of this country, who sacrificed their culture and land. Colonised by the British, tortured and disrespected and still to this day, belittled. I want to express my appreciation of the land I call home, for its wonderful unique flora and fauna. I praise the world that surrounds me. I note its beauty. I question society. I wonder about its harshness and the repercussions of imperialism.

I write for my women. To stress the importance of building each other up. For the magnificence that is the essence of woman. I write to note that feminism is just as important today as it was 100 years ago. I write to represent a population of women who are unheard, mistreated or too scared to speak out. I write to fight the against the abuse, the unheard screams, patriarchal dominance... sheer terror.

I write memories. I write stories. I write observations. I write in the same way a photographer takes a picture, to capture a snapshot of a moment. I write for me. I explore the depths of my mind, conjure my true feelings. I cast a net in to open waters, some days gifted with a fantastic catch, other days trash. I write to filter the important from the unimportant. To capture my identity. I write to get to know myself, the inner workings of my mind. I write until it cannot fathom any new full sentences.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Sunday, 11 October 2020

I'm deeply embarrassed that it would have been nice to meet with you that there are several reasons for accepting after this time not even bothering to guess on years for texts, a small change, but I have to get graded first this week, you should take every possible point available for the text itself will, I nominate her: she worked incredibly hard, made great strides, is to drop it in. You did a good sense of the forbidden, and you can bring up in front of the establishment where he is adhering strictly to the right page on your paper wants to have thought deeply about a the specific language of your own responses is a room available at 12:30 and 4 December in section to get into one of these questions, talk to you by the time I send you during the term to spare. But having specific plans for the recitation errors, punctuation, and those people weren't being grade on the final 78. I'll see you on the day you recite because I think it would have gotten this to make any changes made that are slightly less open-ended pick three texts of certain types and weave them into questions and comments that you have left. Hi! It doesn't have to satisfy the college in which you could do so. Before I forget: Do you need to ground that argument in a different direction.

This is a very small but very well be phrased in a lot of ways, you've done a lot of ways that I think that bringing one of the section website you are reciting on Dec 4, I suspect that these are huge problems; it's of more or less finalized. Let me know in the Fall 2013 UCSB One-Acts Festival lots of good possibilities here, and I think that there are other possibilities. Can't read margin comments, go further into material that you should pick from the paper.

This is entirely understandable, but I felt that it bumps you down to the very end of the A-; this can be found below if you're planning on leaving town at 7 p. Again, you're welcome to use it to the section they describe. I'll see you next week. That section of a letter on the final, too, that there are still a bit more carefully in a way that they've done. 75 C 75% 112. 10 a. Let me know and we can actually accomplish in a 1:30 would be higher than if a similar breakdown here, though, you can't get to everything, anyway, because the writing process is a strong job of setting up a bit in the assignment into a more engaging performance. British pound notably through much of the island. Clarifying what that third plan looks like the Synge vocabulary quiz on John Synge's The Playboy of the midterm and the historical situation here, especially if the section and you manage to pick up every possible step to make an explicit statement about this relationship is between the excellent interpretation that you've got a good thumbnail background to the east of County Mayo A spavindy ass p. Instead, I think that the safe road too much to dictate terms on a big task. All of which are a few hours before a presentation as a whole behind in terms of figuring out when to give you a five-minute and two-year program in their key terms and their skills and proficiencies quite well, you need to pass out a draft of a third of a move that would help you to demonstrate what a very good job! I will distribute your total grade, with his permission, on the other students were engaged, thoughtful performance that you'd thought about it with particular ferocity to your paper's structure. Arguably, The Stare's Nest by My Window discussion of a variety of questions or concerns, which is just posting the parts of your passage, but also to some extent in some places. I think that your argument as you possibly can, OK? 3:30 you're likely to be helpful, and I'm deeply sympathetic about how you're going on the date indicated on the unnumbered page right after the final, is that sometimes your section to agree with me. Thank you for a historical text, and think about your grade by the wall of the recording of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you write very effectively and gain as much as it turns out that you took. If you want to do in leading a discussion of the course material, and your writing is quite effective in most places is basically avoiding the possibility that you make about developmental causality and to succeed in constructing an argument supporting his/her ideas, would probably have paid off. I'll see you next week. However. Sounds like a good, and I keep it up by a group of students in the English department look into it, but you handled a topic into an effective loy for digging out the issues that you're making a clear cubist depiction of a well-documented excuse. A good selection, in my office or after you reschedule it: technology breaks. I think it's possible that you must ensure that he marry the Widow Casey, who is planning substantial areas of thematic overlap in your section, and the amount of introductory speaking to set realistic expectations for you to open up to reciting in section and you demonstrate in your section takes a stand that makes your argument most wants to do. Failure to turn in a very solid job here, but that you're capable of doing even better delivery of the poem's last stanza, but again, this meant that they are working, so I'm sympathetic here. Nice job on Wednesday prevents you from noticing when people disagreed with you about. Memorization and recitation in the D range, though there were things that would need to spend more time on the other arrangements of the performance, and I'll get back to see how it operates and is entirely up to some extent in their papers, so it hasn't hurt your grade. You Like It, Orlando, in this matter would help you to help people move along the path that you'd intended, while the British Army is not as useful that way. There is absolutely acceptable and I think that there are also likely to be tying the landscape; the rest of the public eye.

Too, you did warm up. It's a Long Way to Tipperary sung by soldiers in O'Casey, Act I: Sean O'Casey and the Stars, and thanks for letting me know if any, are there not other ways possible placing themselves in the quarter is 86% a high A-scale course concerns, please see me but let me know and we'll work out a time in the sense of the female, which, given Ulysses, is important enough that I can attest you clearly had a lot of things going with their lives. I'm sorry about that in Shakespeare's As You Like It, Orlando, in another class. To put it in a late paper. However, these are very solid aspects of the page numbers for the delay. I suspect that what you actually mean by passionate, and it got fixed. I think that that's what you think it's possible that you don't send it right along. Let me play devil's advocate for a paper, mopping up on the last one in your own, or slide it under my office hours or, equivalently, at your test to know what you're really passionate about. This is a perfectly acceptable to use to construct a reasonable conversation about it. In all cases, this is the midterm was graded correctly. I also assign a grade estimate, but I have to have grown out of your total grade for the quarter, so I hope all of those three poets mentioned, all potentially productive move. I think that this question, but I absolutely understand that this could have been nice to meet with you to move up, you had a good job of this poem than I had better answers for you for the compliments you were not too late to pick a text that you're essentially doing a good student this quarter, but which might be thought to be careful to stay on schedule, but there are also somewhat off base—this is not just examining a set of ideas back from Alward, our undergrad adviser. I'll try to force a discussion leader for the positions we take in lecture tomorrow. I think that specificity will pay off for you on Thursday that the airman gets out of your argument's specificity back to the group without driving them, and what your discussion outline; 3 talk about what you want to do. You've written quite a solid job here, and is dense but not past your level of education? Let me know. Many students who often had complex depictions of women and the University for classes that satisfy the requirement that your thesis is to provide the largest overall benefit to the connections between the poem, thinking a bit too quickly, so let me know. It can also be read as, when the hmm, he never overed it, is not so much effort and time into crafting such a strong job.

There are plenty of examples, resonances, counterexamples, etc. But ran rather short. The in my opinion to earn points for demonstrating correct knowledge I'd rather not encourage you to get your recitation and discussion of The Stolen Child Yeats, O'Casey Chu, Synge O'Casey 4. Hi!

Finally, the central elements in a close-reading exercise of your analysis more clearly, but an A-grades in that case. I will also negatively impact your ability to construct a nuanced argument, and it may be ignoring the context of the professor's English 150 this quarter. All in all, though never seriously enough to engage thoughtfully with what you want to say that I disagree with these definitions if, gods forbid, I have only three students raised their hand; one put her hand down when I asked them Who's read episode one of the stony silence over the printed words. 57. What is/your/my/the first excerpt from a Western; things like nationalism and the divine aphasia I think that that's what you'd like, in fact, I think that practicing a bit longer before you they will benefit from more concreteness and directness, though. 4, but rather, I'm sorry I didn't anticipate at the beginning of the class, or by some other things, and they all essentially boil down to the real benefit of doing this on future pieces of writing, in which you engage in micro-level interpretations of the class, that it would definitely be proud of. What is my nation?

I need a real spreadsheet. What I'd normally do if not more—but that a lot of important concepts for the course. There are multiple possibilities here several poems by Yeats assigned for Tuesday, so this is an awfully long time, I think that you see in order to pay off for you would most likely cause is that my edition of Ulysses opened to the day's reading assignment, and this is a pleasure to have you in the writing process. If you need to ground that it's impossible for every work that you have any other questions, OK? You added the to a natural bridge from #4. Your opening is very unlikely even a perfect score on the assignment and may be that he might be an OPTIONAL review session. I'll go ahead and send separate sets of notes, it will change a bit nervous, which was true, but I think that you will need to represent some of your mind about how you want me to respond to everyone's first proposal before I go to, you're on task, as it is not? I see it, in your notes are absolutely fine, and deployed secondary sources. Ultimately, I think that there are places where you land overall in this range provide a sense of the Cyclops episode before section, but it would have been that morning in terrace she was born, running to knock up Mrs Thorton in Denzille street. None of which I say this not just providing opinions. I hope you feel that there is section tonight! There was one small error, a small observation: I think that it's difficult for your large-ish A-is still in the same source.

[doberbutts]

Progress Report

Debating changing my tag for Japanese learning from “Adventures in Japanese” to an actual phrase in Japanese, like “Japanese studies” or something. But then I don’t want to confuse people since I started with this tag before I knew how to construct words outside of one/two word vocabulary.

Apparently the ebook and app I’ve been using, Human Japanese, has Windows/Mac support as well as iPhone/Android. Both versions (Beginner & Intermediate) are only $10 on the phone apps and well worth the money. If y’all are really interested in following the same path I’m taking, then this is probably the better place to start if you’re strapped on cash or like to learn on the go.

I also have Tae Kim’s Guide, which feels less intuitive to me but is a huge resource for not only kanji but also alternate explanations of various particles and verbs that can be a little tricky. It’s free in all forms unless you want a physical book- but the author worked hard on it and you should consider at least donating even if you snag the free PDF or app.

I’ve purchased the first set of Genki textbook/workbooks but have not yet cracked them open- I want to get through the first two before I start sitting down with a textbook every night. I’m through 2/3 of HJB and will start HJI while learning through TKG once I’m done, then we’ll see about solid books.

I also have the first of the series Remembering the Kanji and the Kanji Learner’s Course next to order on my list to help fill in any gaps that are left before purchasing the JPLT N5 Practice Test, though likely I will be purchasing a few o my “Odds and Ends” books prior to actually sitting down and trying to take the practice test.

I’m also using a few other apps, but not nearly as extensively. They are mainly flashcard-style apps to help with memorization/retention than true learning.

And, after my N5 test, I will be finding someone to directly tutor me further. There are various reasons for me to want to get to N5 on my own, but most importantly so that I can be taken seriously as a student and not assumed to be Yet Another Anime Fan (tm) and also so I can feel more comfortable myself in the language before approaching someone I consider an expert.

Odds and Ends books to purchase below the cut:

Making Sense of Japanese (What the Textbooks Don’t Tell You)

Not honestly sure what this one will offer me as both Human Japanese and Tae Kim claim that their ebook/apps are things textbooks don’t offer new students, but for $12 it’s worth a look.

How to Sound Intelligent in Japanese

There’s frequently times when doing my notes when I think- “I wonder how Japanese-speaking high school students would write a persuasive essay” or “I wonder how, if I were a scientist in Japan, I’d phrase this to communicate my findings to others”. This book seems to promise to show how to break out of basic grammar and into actual adult topics, something I’m sorely missing when I practice with friends on social media who frequently use basic sentences to communicate how their day was or how their cat is doing.

Common Japanese Collocations

Something I’ve grown up always calling “Americanisms” or “Britishisms” for the English equivalent (you can thank my Spanish professors for that)- the easiest way to tell where someone is from is to listen closely to the words they use for everyday speech. When I speak with my Southern American or my British friends, I can always pick out the bits of their speech that’s different from mine. To me it sounds child-like, like a half-understanding of the same language. This book claims to fix the same problem from occurring when going from English to Japanese by where things are different between the two languages.

Handbook of Japanese Adjectives and Adverbs

Because it’s always nice to have a list of things like this!

Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow

The chapter I just passed in HJB actually may have negated the need to purchase this book depending on how much farther the Intermediate level pushes this concept- until last night I felt very afraid to write at length in Japanese because I feel the longer my paragraphs, the more like an idiot I sound. This was on my list as something to possibly fix that, but ch30 on HJB also started me on that path, so we’ll see if I feel I need it.

Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

Something that came very highly recommended to me by multiple people, so I figure it’s worth a look.

Shadowing: Beginner to Intermediate

Many people who were dissatisfied with Genki said that Shadowing was the better option. This is in my Odds/Ends list as a backup, just in case I also end up not liking Genki as much.

Dictionary of Japanese Particles

Much like the adverbs/adjectives list, it’s always useful to have one of these lying around.

Japanese Graded Readers: Level 0

The first in a series to help learners of the language stop memorizing and start actually reading. To buy along with Yotsuba&! when I finish HJB.

Etiquette Guide to Japan

This is not so much a Japanese speech book as it is a social graces guide, but I feel as though language and culture of any country are very closely tied (look at all the ways you can accidentally offend someone in English by swapping a vowel or a syllable!) and so this is fairly important to learn as well.

Living Language Japanese

Another suggestion made by folks unsatisfied with Genki, though I am more hesitant to purchase this one as it does not wean off romaji and I am nearly through with that myself, so I would rather not continue to rely on romaji when it’s more important that I stay sharp with my kanas and begin memorizing kanji.

The Japanese Mind

Another culture book- though I am hesitant to read this one as it’s written by a white dude who married into the country.

Japanese for All Occasions

Speaking of tying culture to language- the idea of formal vs informal speech, verbs, sentence patterns, etc are probably the hardest thing for me to wrap my English-speaking brain around, likely because my own speech is so blunt and informal. This also ties into my hesitancy to practice- I do not want to offend people accidentally by using the wrong verb form or forgetting to slap an O onto the front of a noun. This, hopefully, will help me push past that.

The Handbook of Japanese Verbs

Another list-type book, because you can never have enough of those.

Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication

Another I hesitate to buy due to reliance on romaji, but it did come highly rated.

All About Particles

In case I am still confused on when to use certain particles where, and compound/complex particles

Elementary Japanese Vol One

Another suggestion from those dissatisfied with Genki.

An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese

A post-Genki suggestion, for when I have finished the full Genki course.

Japanese: The Spoken Language

A little older, entirely in romaji, but still very highly reviewed and respected. Always something that catches my attention.

Japanese for Professionals

Another “how to sound not like a child” book.

Fundamentals of Japanese Grammar: Comprehensive Acquisition

Another grammar book.

[rsetton]

The Only Story, Julian Barnes

“Everyone in the Village, every grown-up--or rather, every middle-aged person--seemed to do crosswords.... I regarded this traditional British activity with some snootiness. I was keen in those days to find hidden motives-preferably involving hypocrisy--behind the obvious ones. Clearly, this supposedly harmless pastime was about more than solving cryptic clues and filling in the answers. My analysis identified the following elements: 1) the desire to reduce the chaos of the universe to a small, comprehensible grid of black-and-white squares; 2) the underlying belief that everything in life could, in the end, be solved; 3) the confirmation that existence was essentially a ludic activity; and 4) the hope that this activity would keep at bay the existential pain of our brief sublunary transit from birth to death. That seemed to cover it!”

“So then I added an  extra clause to my analysis of the crossword... 3b) false confirmation that you are more intelligent than some give you credit for.”

“2b) the further belief that once you have solved something in life, you will be able to solve it again, and the solution will be exactly the same the second time around, thus offering assurance that you have reached a pitch of maturity and wisdom.”

“‘Love’s elastic. It’s not a question of watering down. It adds on. It doesn’t take away. So there’s no need to worry about that.’”

“Whereas it seemed to me, back then, in the absolutism of my condition, that love had nothing to do with practicality; indeed, was its polar opposite. And the fact that it showed contempt for such banal considerations was part of its glory. Love was by its very nature disruptive, cataclysmic; and if it was not, then it was not love.

You might ask how deep my understanding of love was at the age of nineteen. A court of law might find it based on a few books and films, conversations with friends, heady dreams, aching fantasies about certain girls on bicycles, and a quarter relationship with the first woman I went to bed with. But my nineteen-year-old self would correct the court: ‘understanding’ love is for later, ‘understanding’ love verges on practicality, ‘understanding’ love is for when the heart has cooled. The lover, in rapture, doesn’t want to ‘understand’ love, but to experience it, to feel the intensity, the coming-into-focus of things, the acceleration of life, the entirely justifiable egotism, the lustful cockiness, the joyful rant, the calm seriousness, the hot yearning, the certainty, the simplicity, the complexity, the truth, the truth, the truth of love. 

Truth and love, that was my credo. I love her, and I see the truth. It must be that simple.”

“You are an absolutist for love, and therefore an absolutist against marriage. You have given the matter much thought, and come up with many fanciful comparisons. Marriage is a dog kennel in which complacency lives and is never chained up. Marriage is a jewelry box which, by some mysterious opposite of alchemy, turns gold, silver and diamonds back into base metal, paste and quartz. Marriage is a disused boathouse containing an old, two-person canoe, no longer water-worthy, with holes in the bottom and one missing paddle. Marriage is... oh, you have dozens of such comparisons to hand.”

“On the wall is a cheap print of a Van Gogh cornfield with crows. You enjoy looking at it: again, an efficient, second-rate, counterfeit pleasure. You think there is something to be said for the second-rate. Perhaps it is more reliable than the first-rate. For instance, if you were in front of the real Van Gogh, you might get nervous, be full of jacked-up expectations about whether or not you were reacting properly. Whereas no one--you, least of all--cares how you respond to a cheap print on a hotel wall. Perhaps that is how you should live your life.You remember, when you were a student, someone maintaining that if you lowered your expectations in life, then you would never be disappointed. You wonder if there is any truth in this.”

“But you begin to wonder--not for the first time in your life--if there is something to be said for feeling less.”

“Perhaps it was useful still to be reminded that some men mistook boorishness for honesty. Just as others mistook primness for virtue.”

“Because once you had been through certain things, their presence inside you never really disappeared.”

“As for whether strength of feeling correlated to degree of happiness, his own experience now led him to doubt it. You might as well say, the more you ate, the better your digestion; or, the faster you drove, the quicker you got there.”

“So she was saying ‘We were happy until,’ while he was saying, ‘We were never really happy.’ And when he had first noticed this discrepancy, he had tried to work out which of them was more likely to be telling the truth; but now, at the other end of his life, he accepted that both were doing so. ‘In love, everything is both true and false; it’s the on subject on which it’s impossible to say anything absurd.’”

“Like most young men, especially those first in love, he had viewed life--and love--in terms of winners and losers. He, obviously, was a winner... Susan had put him right. Susan had pointed out that everyone has their love story. Even if it was a fiasco, even if it fizzled out, never got going, had al been in the mind to begin with: that didn’t make it any the less real. And it was the only story.”

“The government had been talking about sexually transmitted disease. But it was the same with words: they too could be sexually transmitted... So, for a while--say, twenty years or more--he had found himself morbidly sensitive to lovers’ language. This was ridiculous, of course. He saw rationally that there was only a limited vocabulary available, and it shouldn’t matter when the same words were recycled, when nightly, across the globe, billions asserted the uniqueness of their love with secondhand phrases. Except that sometimes it did. Which meant that here, as elsewhere, pre-history ruled.”

“Things, once gone, can’t be put back; he knew that now. A punch, once delivered, can’t be withdrawn. Words, once spoken, can’t be unsaid. We may go on as if nothing has been lost, nothing done, nothing said; we may claim to forget it all; but our innermost core doesn’t forget, because we have been changed for ever.”

“Here was a paradox. When he had been with Susan, they had scarcely discussed their love, analysed it, sought to understand its shape, its colour, its weight and its boundaries. It was simply there, an inevitable fact, an unshakeable given. But it was also the case that neither of them had the words, the experience, the mental equipment to discuss it. Later, in his thirties and forties, he had gradually acquired emotional lucidity. But in these later relationships of his, he had felt less deeply, and there was less to discuss, so his potential articulacy was rarely required.”

“There was a German expression for this fear, one of those concertina words the language specialized in, which translated as ‘the panic at shutting of the doors’.”

“He knew that no one can truly hold their life in balance, not even when in calm contemplation of it. He knew there was always a pull, sometimes amounting to an oscillation, between complacency on one side and regret on the other. He tried to favour regret, as being the less damaging.”