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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010When Someone's Dog Has Died
(carried over from another thread) "Percival P. Cassidy" <Nobody@NotMyISP.net> wrote: >he said (or at least I thought he said), "I just lost my daughter." I >think I said, "Oh, I am very sorry to hear that." It was not until a few >minutes later that I discovered that he had said "dog" rather than >"daughter." A friend who recently lost his dog after 19 years had a full wake and burial ceremony, including a viewing, a gravesite ceremony, and an opera singer singing "Ave Maria." I'm quite serious about this. I attended along with about 100 of his friends. The death of his dog has hit him so hard that he's moved out of the building he owns and now lives in another neighborhood. And, no, he was not some kind of eccentric who couldn't relate to people. In fact, he's very much a people person, a former bar owner, and someone who is very socially involved. > (carried over from another thread) > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > fact, he's very much a people person, a former bar owner, and someone who is > very socially involved. I've grieved for dead cats I had almost as long, but I have to confess that I didn't organize a ceremony and certainly didn't move. I think in many areas there are official pet graveyards and related services, so there must be other people who react to the death of a pet as your friend did.  SignatureCheryl > (carried over from another thread) > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > A friend who recently lost his dog after 19 years had a full wake and burial > ceremony, including a viewing, a gravesite I initially read that as "transvestite", and thought, how odd. Still, not such a big blunder as hearing "dog" as "daughter". > ceremony, and an opera singer > singing "Ave Maria." I'm quite serious about this. I attended along with [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > fact, he's very much a people person, a former bar owner, and someone who is > very socially involved. Signatureathel >> (carried over from another thread) >> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > I initially read that as "transvestite", and thought, how odd. Still, > not such a big blunder as hearing "dog" as "daughter". Better than the other way round: "My daughter died last week" "Oh? Had the bitch whelped before she snuffed it?" SignatureJohn Dean Oxford > A friend who recently lost his dog after 19 years had a full wake and burial > ceremony, including a viewing, a gravesite ceremony, and an opera singer > singing "Ave Maria." I'm quite serious about this. I attended along with > about 100 of his friends. The death of his dog has hit him so hard that he's > moved out of the building he owns and now lives in another neighborhood. Just after the Second World War there was a significant fall in the birth rate in the UK and a corresponding increase in the number of working class people taking ownership of dogs as pets (generally, it was the upper-middle and rich classes that coddled their dogs) as apposed to using them for the guarding of property etc. About a decade later, instead of the disposing of carcasses in fields, canals or dumping grounds - people began frown on such acts – working class dog owners’ openly grieved at the loss of their pet dog: some social historians have hinted that pets (dogs in particular) had become ‘surrogate children’ during this period. If a dog has been part of a the family unit for years, its contribution in terms of adding character and dimension to that family has, in many ways, helped shape and develop that family, and mourning the loss of this ‘character’ is perfectly understandable. > > A friend who recently lost his dog after 19 years had a full wake and burial > > ceremony, including a viewing, a gravesite ceremony, and an opera singer [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > has, in many ways, helped shape and develop that family, and mourning > the loss of this ‘character’ is perfectly understandable. I remember a funeral for a goldfish. We wrapped it in leaves from the tree and buried it in the back yard. Just three kids, but we were as serious as we could be. Sunnybank, home of Albert Payson Terhune, Lad, Bruce, Wolf, and a host of others, has a graveyard for collies: http://www.sunnybankcollies.us/sunnybank2.htm >> A friend who recently lost his dog after 19 years had a full wake and burial >> ceremony, including a viewing, a gravesite ceremony, and an opera singer [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >birth rate in the UK and a corresponding increase in the number of >working class people taking ownership of dogs as pets (generally, it So much for the "baby boom". SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk > >> A friend who recently lost his dog after 19 years had a full wake and burial > >> ceremony, including a viewing, a gravesite ceremony, and an opera singer [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Blog:http://methodius.blogspot.com > E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools got very crowded after 1952 (it took that long to find the funding and get the new ones built). My own grade school had three rooms of 40 first-graders, and the same for second grade. Then the new school opened, and it dropped to two rooms of no more than 30 each. > I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new > schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools > got very crowded after 1952 (it took that long to find the funding and > get the new ones built). My own grade school had three rooms of 40 > first-graders, and the same for second grade. Then the new school > opened, and it dropped to two rooms of no more than 30 each. There was a smaller baby boom after the First WW leading to a lot of school construction in the late 1920s. My grade school had an Annex that was as big as the original school. Then came the Great Depression and a drop in birth rates. I was born in 1935. When I attended grade school about half the classrooms were empty and class sizes were no more than about 20. We had very different experiences. Oh, and all the teachers were old maids who had been hired before the boom and so had seniority during the layoffs. SignatureJohn Varela Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email > I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new > schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools > got very crowded after 1952 (it took that long to find the funding and > get the new ones built). My own grade school had three rooms of 40 > first-graders, and the same for second grade. Then the new school > opened, and it dropped to two rooms of no more than 30 each. There was a baby boom in the UK, too. My primary school opened in 1952* in a brand new building. It was a very modern building, with lots of big windows. The classrooms had been carefully designed, right down to a marble slab in the corner to keep the milk cool: some here will remember free school milk, those third of a pint glass bottles with foil lids and paper straws. The school closed as a primary school after about five years and became a school for "educationally subnormal" children. From the North Circular you can still see the building, across the Welsh Harp reservoir. * the British History Online web site links to the History of the County of Middlesex which puts the date as 1954, which is wrong. Which proves that even authoritative sources make mistakes. But this does not prove that Wikipedia is as good as anything else, which some people argue. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) > There was a baby boom in the UK, too. My primary school opened in 1952* > in a brand new building. It was a very modern building, with lots of big > windows. The classrooms had been carefully designed, right down to a > marble slab in the corner to keep the milk cool: some here will remember > free school milk, those third of a pint glass bottles with foil lids and > paper straws. In weather like today's, the bottles (which were delievered in a crate and kept outside the school) would freeze, pushing the bottle tops up on a column of frozen milk. Sometimes the crate was brought inside early and put near a radiator to thaw. I could never stand warm milk, and this was truly horrible. > The school closed as a primary school after about five > years and became a school for "educationally subnormal" children. From > the North Circular you can still see the building, across the Welsh Harp > reservoir. I'm saying nothing. SignatureDavid > > There was a baby boom in the UK, too. My primary school opened in 1952* > > in a brand new building. It was a very modern building, with lots of big [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > -- > David Our lunch milk came in waxed cardboard cartons, half-pint (American measure: 8 ounces or 237 ml; not only are our gallons different, our pints have different numbers of ounces). At lunchtime, we lined up and were shepherded through the basement hallway to receive a carton of milk taken from a metal-wire crate (which had probably been taken from a refrigerator there). Then we returned to our classrooms to eat at our desks. Every Monday morning, our teacher collected milk money from every child who did not live close enough to go home for lunch; I think it was eight cents a day. My grade school opened in 1946, I think, near the edge of the city. There was an old school, serving what had been a separate town, just over a mile west; a new school had opened a quarter mile east. Oh, those were the public schools (town [?] schools); mine was a parohial school, the other side of the parking lot from a Catholic church -- my teachers were nuns. In about 1955, another public school opened, about a mile northwest, and another parochial school, about a mile north-northeast. Those three public schools now? One is gone, one is a middle school; the newest is still a grade school (although only up through 5th grade, instead of 8th). The Catholic schools are still going, but not with nuns. Cece wrote, in <b03a1a1b-8f65-4f1d-95c5-bbf5021bed46@u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> on Wed, 6 Jan 2010 12:11:00 -0800 (PST): > Our lunch milk came in waxed cardboard cartons, half-pint (American > measure: 8 ounces or 237 ml; not only are our gallons different, our > pints have different numbers of ounces). It's in the pints that the difference arises. Both gallons are 8 pints. SignatureNick Spalding BrE/IrE > Cece wrote, in > <b03a1a1b-8f65-4f1d-95c5-bbf5021be...@u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Nick Spalding > BrE/IrE Our ounces are different sizes > Cece wrote, in > <b03a1a1b-8f65-4f1d-95c5-bbf5021be...@u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Nick Spalding > BrE/IrE Your pint has 20 ounces; ours has 16. But the ounces are different sizes too! Yours is 28.413 ml; ours is 29.4735. So our pints are less than 100 ml different. Yours is a tad more than half a liter (568 ml) and ours is a tad less (473). Ours are defined in terms of the gallon, which is defined as 231 cu. in. (same as Queen Anne's wine gallon). Your Imperial gallon was defined by George IV as "the volume of 10 Avoirdupois pounds of water at 62°F." Which worked out to approximately 277.4 cu. in. >> I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new >> schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >the North Circular you can still see the building, across the Welsh Harp >reservoir. Somebody had some foresight. My school (mixed infants, mixed juniors and separate boys' and girls' secondaries all on the same site) was built 1930-ish, but coped with classes of at least 40 pupils in the 1950s quite adequately. SignatureRobin (BrE) Herts, England >>> I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new >>> schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >built 1930-ish, but coped with classes of at least 40 pupils in the >1950s quite adequately. The following comment is not totally frivolous:- Children were smaller in the 1950s than they are today. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:36:44 +0000, Robin Bignall >>Somebody had some foresight. My school (mixed infants, mixed juniors >>and separate boys' and girls' secondaries all on the same site) was [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >Children were smaller in the 1950s than they are today. Yeah, well, I know I am. SignatureKaty Jennison spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @ >>>> I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new >>>> schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Children were smaller in the 1950s than they are today. I certainly was. Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I'm sure you're right. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) >>>>> I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new >>>>> schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > I certainly was. Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I'm sure you're right. I'm not convinced. The last time I went to an Old Boys function (admittedly 20 or more years ago), everyone looked just the same: ie the boys who were taller than me were still taller; the shorter ones were still shorter. The only difference, in many cases, was the girth and hair. SignatureRob Bannister >>>> I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new >>>> schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > >Children were smaller in the 1950s than they are today. They weren't small enough to get two on one chair. Incidentally, in response to LFS, for some reason that I've never understood I memorised the register of my fourth and final year at secondary school. It starts "Alsop, Bignall, Birch...." and ends "Watson, Watts, White, Wooton". There are exactly forty names. SignatureRobin (BrE) Herts, England >>> I think the Baby Boom was an American phenomenon. A lot of new >>> schools were opened starting about 1955, after the existing schools [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > built 1930-ish, but coped with classes of at least 40 pupils in the > 1950s quite adequately. I've just looked up some school photos: we had 25 in a class. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) |
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