UK specific: Mussorgsky title and environmental impact Aga

[duckodeath]

This is for the same fic that takes place in London in January 2007. The first question the place matters, but the time doesn't. The second one is very time dependent

Comments

[lil_shepherd]

I didn't even know that it was known as 'Night on a Bald Mountain' in the States - I've always seen it 'Night on a Bare Mountain' at concerts and such. This is probably because in the UK we don't tend to use 'bald' for anything except 'something without hair or feathers or, occasionally, fluff'. So, a bald head or a bald cat (though we would generally use 'naked' for a Sphynx.)

We don't use it for 'treeless' or 'snowless' and would say 'bare rock' never 'bald rock' which is, I suppose, the context here.

We also don't use it meaning 'white' except when it's part of a proper name like, say 'Bald Eagle' (and I thought for a long time as a child that that had a featherless head like a vulture) - we wouldn't ever used 'bald-faced' for a horse with a very large white blaze - we would say 'white-faced'.

[sollersuk]

Full agreement.

Agas carry so much cultural baggage in terms of the social etc background of their users that green credentials are the least of it; the only family I knew who had one loved it because it kept so much of the house warm (a consideration even in the English summer) and so it was a net saving in fuel. "We've got a Rayburn" doesn't have the cachet of "We've got an Aga".

[sollersuk]

Oh, and re bald eagles: never mind in childhood, I was in my 50s before I realised that they didn't have featherless heads like vultures and have only just now discovered why they are called that.

[bookwormsarah]

I only discovered that Bald Eagles aren't bald when reading this thread!

[lexin]

Likewise. I'd always assumed they were bald like vultures.

[lilacsigil]

Me too!

[shocolate]

This.

[syntinen_laulu]

And we must all have wondered why we say 'bald as a coot' when they aren't bald; at least not in modern British English they aren't.

BTW, I only learned recently that the words piebald and skewbald contain the word bald in the same archaic sense.

[dorsetgirl]

Yes, I had wondered exactly which planet had bald coots - good point. (But even with bald meaning white, I'm not sure the phrase makes sense!).

As to piebald and skewbald, I didn't know; I just had a vague idea that they were words for colours in horses (like "bay" for example, which also isn't a normal word for a colour). I've just looked them up and they do indeed both mean a colouration involving large patches of white. What a haven of unexpected learning this comm is!

[charlycrash]

Yep. "We've got an Aga" says to me "We're posh (or at least extremely middle-class), rich, reasonably likely to be right-leaning politically in a sort of Daily Mail-type way and most probably are thinking about moving to the countryside". The greenness or lack thereof doesn't really come into it.

[dorsetgirl]

Wait, what? A Bald Eagle isn't bald? Why is it called that then? Are you saying that in the US "bald" means something different from what it means here (ie hairless)? Never mind "as a child", I had taken it for granted until two minutes ago that a Bald Eagle was, well, bald.

[eglantine_br]

Bald eagle has white feathers on his or her head. (As an adult,) Brown feathers as a kid-bird.

Bald can mean hairless, or sort of nude-- like a place that used to have trees and they are all removed. Or like a bald-faced lie, sort of visible and uncovered. But mostly guess it just means hairless...

As for the music. I think of it as "Night on Bald Mountain." I have never heard it any other way.

[steepholm]

Fwiw, the UK usage is "bare-faced lie".

[syrenstar]

As I've only heard bald-faced lie spoken I've always thought it was bold-faced meaning the lie was somewhat outrageous and unbelievable.

And count me among those only just learning the bald eagle doesn't have a bald-spot.

[lovelier]

I knew about the Eagles, but I, too, thought it was bold-faced lie. In my mind I guess I thought it meant that you were being really bold to tell a lie that was so obviously false.

[lil_shepherd]

This is one of those times when the US has retained an older meaning (though I think that it would be regarded as old fashioned and may now be becoming obsolete). They sometimes use 'bald' to mean 'white', which is, in fact, the meaning (sort of) of the Old English 'balled'.

I was forced into finding out what exactly was meant by 'bald-faced horse' after reading far too many Westerns.