It is Friday again and it's time for another Mad Minute Word! I will be your host this time around, which pleases me to no end, as it is my first time hosting a challenge. Thank you ever so much to Spirrow @spirrowshoot for picking me. I'm honoured.
Let's get this party started, then.
The idea of Mad Minute Words is simple (yet at times confusing): we present a strange (and/or lovely) word to you, and you draw from it as inspiration for your photo. To keep it undeniably mad, we're doing two words a week, one presented on Monday and another on Friday.
Today's mad minute word is widdershins (English, adverb). It has a couple of meanings you can work with.
1. in a left-handed, wrong, or contrary direction
2. The first known use of the word comes from the mid 16th century, when the word was used to describe that particular kind of bad hair day when unruly hair stands on end or simply falls the wrong way.
Your photo for this word should be posted on Sunday, May 12th. Please tag your entry mmw-widdershins. After Sunday I'll pick my favorite representation of the word, and the photographer gets to host next Friday's mad minute word challenge.
There we go. Widdershins, it is. Have fun, join in on the conversation below.
I've been driven crazy trying to remember the source of the widdershins quote that sprang into my head when I saw this post. But I found it!!!
Bullocky by Judith Wright
Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
Till the long solitary tracks
etched deeper with each lurching load
were populous before his eyes,
and fiends and angels used his road.
All the long straining journey grew
a mad apocalyptic dream,
and he old Moses, and the slaves
his suffering and stubborn team.
Then in his evening camp beneath
the half-light pillars of the trees
he filled the steepled cone of night
with shouted prayers and prophecies.
While past the campfire's crimson ring
the star struck darkness cupped him round.
and centuries of cattle-bells
rang with their sweet uneasy sound.
Grass is across the wagon-tracks,
and plough strikes bone beneath the grass,
and vineyards cover all the slopes
where the dead teams were used to pass.
O vine, grow close upon that bone
and hold it with your rooted hand.
The prophet Moses feeds the grape,
and fruitful is the Promised Land.
@gozoinklings Yes, you're exactly right. As long as it's posted on Sunday, you're fine. I'll probably pick my favourite on Tuesday or thereabouts, so you don't need to worry if you aren't online on Sunday. :)
@kittikat Yes, all sorts of "wrong direction" action going on with this word. :D I loved the look & sound of the word, and thought it might give room for some fun interpretations. ;)
@summerfield I think last Monday's word was lost in confusion somewhere and never posted. I think that's what Spirrow @spirrowshoot said in a comment to someone, somewhere.
Ahaha, my favorite thing about these threads is seeing how each host customizes his adverbs in the rules' text :p Today I'm undeniably mad.
Now that's a yummy word. Sounds to me like something you might hear in "He beat the widdershins out of me!" or "It was a dark and stormy night when the widdershins hit," etc.
@summerfield Yes, @joa is right - there was no word for Monday this week. We got a little more than jumbled in all the madness, hehe. From here on we should be resuming the regular schedule. So sorry for the confusion!
@spirrowshoot I know, the word sounds exactly like that! :D I think I'll start using it in a totally weird way "to beat the widdershins out of him" or "what the widdershins are you doing" etc. Beats the f-word and many other unimaginative swear words 100-0. :)
SOOO true! I love using outrageous malapropisms as insults - they sound great and the other person has no idea what you're talking about. Take THAT, you widdershinning strikhedonia!
I posted two..are we allowed to do that? I don't see anyone else doing two. Mine is just two different views of the same thing.. If we cannot do that, I will change the tagging...and just tag the one in my main/365 album. Thanks!
@catwoman2 I did not know that, until someone who tagged a pic for it mentioned that. Interesting...I could have shot something else if I had known that!
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Bullocky by Judith Wright
Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
Till the long solitary tracks
etched deeper with each lurching load
were populous before his eyes,
and fiends and angels used his road.
All the long straining journey grew
a mad apocalyptic dream,
and he old Moses, and the slaves
his suffering and stubborn team.
Then in his evening camp beneath
the half-light pillars of the trees
he filled the steepled cone of night
with shouted prayers and prophecies.
While past the campfire's crimson ring
the star struck darkness cupped him round.
and centuries of cattle-bells
rang with their sweet uneasy sound.
Grass is across the wagon-tracks,
and plough strikes bone beneath the grass,
and vineyards cover all the slopes
where the dead teams were used to pass.
O vine, grow close upon that bone
and hold it with your rooted hand.
The prophet Moses feeds the grape,
and fruitful is the Promised Land.
Now that's a yummy word. Sounds to me like something you might hear in "He beat the widdershins out of me!" or "It was a dark and stormy night when the widdershins hit," etc.
LOL