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i 6 - Orono Weekly limes, Wednesday, November 25, 1998 ODMEHEAN champs Recvised school year calender approved The Aill Ontario O.M.H.A. Pee Wee Hockey Champions -- The Newcastle Square Boys team, were presented with certificates of achievement at Monday eveiiing's counicil meeting. Team members are: front row, left to right - Paul Garisto, Zach Ibbotson, John Stafford, Paul Highgate. Second row - Mike Trotman, Nicholas Boyd, Collin Cureatz, Colin Holmes, Ryan Sutton, Pete Heerschop. Back row - Chris Saunders, Colin Organ, Joey Castellano, Dan Cowx, Dylan Cuil. Arthur Black THERE MUST BE A WORD FOR IT There's an old game we used to play, the central theme of which was: if you were cast awvay on a desert island and you could only take one book with you, what would it be? The politically correct answer, as 1 recaîl, was The Bible. Some folks opted for a play by Shakespeare or a novel by' Tolstoy. Eddie, the class doofus, always maintained that lie was willing to settle for the latest issue of Playboy. Me, I'd choose the dictio- nary. Any dictionary, as long as it was good and, fat. 1 can't think of any other book that's given me as much pleasure. It wouldn't have to be a brand, spanking new dictionary either. In fact, I'd prefer an old one - something 'like the 1918 Webster's I have athome. it doesn't contain words like 'radar' or 'laser', 'Sputnik' or even 'atomhic bomb'. But it does have lots-of words and expressions you simply don't hear anymore. For instance, do you know what 'filliping' is? That's the proper termi for 'snapping your fingers'. Now why would we ever discard a perfectly good word like that? You find curious word inversions in old dictionaries, too -- words that have, for. no clear reason reversed some let- ters and taken on new pronun- ciations. Did you know that 'butterfly' was once 'flutter- by'? Makes a lot more sense The Swedes have a great word that 1 think we really ought to steal - uffda. That's what Swedes say when they see someone else stub a toeor sustain a nasty paper cut. It's an expression of sympathy - something like the German gesundheit for sneezing. Uffda - 50 much more concise than "Geez, 1 bet that hurts,eh?" The Yiddish language has given us a raft of useful words: when you think of it. Those little, flittering critters have nothing to do with butter. Another word that got flipped is 'sideburns'. Sucli furry facial adornments were origi- nally known as 'burnsides' - named in honour of an American Civil War general by the name of Burnside who was well-known among the troops for his outlandishly bushy cheek whiskers. And if 1 couldn't take an English language dictionary with me to my desert island, I'd settle for a multi-language one, because foreign tongues ofien contain words and phras- es that English just doesn't have. The Frenchi have a phrase» -- esprit d'escalier. It translates as 'the spirit of the staircase' - but what it means is 'what I shoulda said'. -Such as when you're at a cocktail party and somebody zings you with a clever put- down? And you go "Ho, ho, that's a good one." -- as you fantasize about crawling under the table and pulling the table- cloth over your head? Then, on your way home you think of the perfect coineback - a line you could have said to skewer your antagonist and end up looking like Oscar Wilde - except it's too late now. That's esprit d'escalier. The Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District Sehool Board has received approval from the Ministry of Education and Training for its revised school year calendar which adds seven instruc- tional days to make up for the time lost during the sec- ondary school closure this September. Under'the revised plan, the shtick for a performance piece, schlemiel for an idiot, chutzpah for - well, we don't really have an English word that captures it - brass, bravado, cockiness, ingenuity - people who speak Yiddish get to say ail of that with one word: chutzpah. But the Yiddish word we Canucks need to adopt is far- potchket. It refers to anything that is irretrievabiy fouled up - thanks to repeated attempts to fix it. Canada's sad sack Labrador helicopters could be rechristened Farpotchkets. And let's not forget the Italians. They, too, have a lin- guistic contribution to make towards life as it is lived today. That contribution is ponte. it refers to that extra day off we like to take - usually tacked on to a weekend or a holiday. Hey -- I've just had an esprit d'escalier - what's to stop me from taking a ponte right now? After ail, the day's pretty well farpotchket and I've got a migraine too. This is where you say uffida. following days will becorne instructional days: Monday, December 21, 1998 Tuesday. December 22, 1998 In addition, five of the orig- inal ten exam days will become instructional days. "We are pleased that this issue is resolved and we can carry on with Board busi- ness," says Don Foiz, Director of Education, "The plan will now be lmplemented by our secondary school principals and staff." Gene Brahaney, Board Chairperson states, *'Our revised plan met the Ministry requirements and will provide students with ample time to complete their courses of study successfully." In a letter to the Board, received on November 17, from Norbert Hartmann, Assistant Deputy Ministry of Elementary/Secondary Operations, Mr. Hartmann thanks the Board and admin- istration for working with the Ministry to make revisions to ensure conslstency in the recovery of lost Instructional lime for ail students affected. 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