brabofontein

Though some academic might take exception to this bit of folk etymology, the city of Antwerp is named after a legendary practise of hand-hurling ([h]ant werpen) commemorated with a bronze figure of the Roman soldier who put an end to exorbitant tolls.
According to local lore, trade was hindered by a despotic giant called Druon Antigoon, whom exacted a high price for passage (like Three Billy Goats Gruff) and would cut off a hand of a vessel’s captain who failed to pay the fee for docking and unceremoniously toss it into the harbor. A Roman captain of the guard named Silvius Brabo slew the menace by decapitating him with his sword and for the sake of poetic justice also cut off his hand and hurled it as far as he could. The scene was executed in bronze as a fountain before the guild halls in the main market square in 1887 by sculptor Jef Lambeaux in part to celebrate the end of the revanchment policy of imposing high tariffs—though without dismemberment.

general election

sunday best

To celebrate a centenary of public ownership, the BBC reports, the English Heritage Trust—the charitable organization that manages over four hundred historic properties, included in its portfolio manor houses, Roman fortifications, Tintagel Castle and oversight in the Blue Plaques programme of London, solicited from visitors family snapshots of Stonehenge.  Included in the contributions that numbered over a thousand was this circa 1932 outing amongst the stones and one image capturing a family picnic from the summer of 1875. The gallery showcases not only changing fashion and access to the monoliths but also how people’s relationship to the camera has evolved—how they mug and pose and what constitutes keeping—all against a backdrop that’s remained ageless.

epicenity

In recognition of the relatively new and accepted practise of declaring one’s pronouns—though they and derivatives like theirs and themselves have been employed in the English language in the singular context (see also) since the 1500s, Merriam-Webster named they as their 2019 Word of the Year, reflecting the volume of lookups on its website. Significantly, current parlance rather than referencing an unknown or unspecified antecedent instead is a term that normalises gender-neutrality or non-conformity along with gendered personal pronouns. Honourable-mentions from this past year’s lingual landscape can also be explored at the link above.

unman, wittering and zigo

Released under the title Compañeros del Crimen to theatre audiences in Uruguay in 1972 the cinematic adaptation of the 1958 radio drama by Giles Cooper portrays a newly arrived substitute teacher hired on to complete the semester at a boys’ finishing school who comes to suspect that his predecessor was murdered by the students—though his fears are dismissed as paranoia initially. Often portrayed as a stage piece in public schools in the UK, it is also part of the curriculum for English standard coursework for one’s GCSEs. The resonant quotation from the venerable headmaster goes, “Authority is a necessary evil and every bit as evil as it is necessary.”