Something for the ailurophiles among us

[Cole Parker]

I know people here have diverse interests, but there seem to be a disproportionate number of cat lovers lurking around.

I know some of us have a taste for things other than cats.

But perhaps we can marry a couple of our likes with this video.

Classical music lovers should watch it, too.

Well, hell, I can't imagine anyone not liking it!

C

[DesDownunder]

And a big thank you to Cole for giving us the cat's meow of videos.

[colinian]

What amazes me is that they could do this without busting up laughing. I sure couldn't.

Colin

[Grant Bentley]

[Cole Parker]

Actually, Colin, the brunette kid kept almost breaking up, some of the kids in the background were giggling just a little, and even the sober blond kid smirked once or twice.

I wondered about not laughing, too, however, and decided that their restraint is because what we're seeing is a finished performance after hours of rehearsal. That takes some of the humor out of it for them. You'll note, the times the brunette does show us his impish grin is usually after the crowd has just reacted with laughter. That makes it much harder to keep a straight face.

C

[DesDownunder]

[...]

That makes it much harder to keep a straight face.

C

I have always found it hard...to keep a straight face. The straight usually takes his face with him when he gets dressed and leaves.

[Jason Rimbaud]

Cole, that was actually pretty hysterical...the brunet boy made it though, his little smirks and crazy meeeooo were perfect.

Jason

and Des, naughty...very naughty

[Cole Parker]

...the brunet boy was perfect.

Jason

Ah, I see. It's much like blond and blonde. I knew that disctinction, but didn't with this one; that might be my first time ever writing the word brunette. I shoud have been gender-correct, I guess, and done it your way. You keep teaching me Jason, whether you're aware of it or not.

I didnt even know you could spell it as you did. But I just went and checked, and it can be spelled both ways.

Funny, though. Both spellings had the same definition!

C

[colinian]

Funny, though. Both spellings had the same definition!

Actually:

bru?net

Variant: or bru?nette

Pronunciation: br?-'net

Function: noun

Date: circa 1539

a person having brown or black hair and often a relatively dark complexion ― spelled brunet when used of a boy or man and usually brunette when used of a girl or woman

Colin

[Cole Parker]

Well, yeah, that's what I supposed. And had I read several of the definitions, I have found all that. But the two books I checked just has the first part of the definition, to wit, a person with dark hair.

But quite obviously, the ette suffix suggests feminine, the et masculine. That makes cigarettes feminine, yet one seductively caresses them in the mouth or lips, ala something else approximately that shape that is quite masculine indeed. I think they should probably be renamed cigarets.

C

[Merkin]

It's always good to keep you up to snuff, Cole:

cig?a?rette also cig?a?ret (sĭg'ə-rět', sĭg'ə-rět')

n.

A small roll of finely cut tobacco for smoking, enclosed in a wrapper of thin paper.

A similar roll of another substance, such as a tobacco substitute or marijuana.

[French, diminutive of cigare, cigar, from Spanish cigarro; see cigar.]

The American Heritage? Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Copyright ? 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

[Cole Parker]

It would have been more helpful, James, if you'd said whether the French noun cigare was masculine or feminine.

C

[Merkin]

Makes no difference, Cole, since the Spanish is definitely a caballero...

[Guest Fritz]

I hereby promise and swear, upon my sacred honor, that I will not now, nor in the future, make any wisecracks about Cole's taste in music being the "Cat's Meow." To do so would be cattish.

[Camy]

Brilliant! Meow for the turn on, Cole.

Camy

[blue]

That was the cat's pajamas...and he wants them back!

Hep cat, daddyoh....

I was somewhat concerned that my cat would either be sending them flowers or throwing down the gauntlet. However, he was napping, as cats are wont to do, and probably assumed the boys were telling each other of their undying affection or their desire for a duel at sunrise. It is hard to tell, with cats.

Nice video. French, even.

-----

Speaking of French, both "blond/e" and "brunet/te" are French loanwords into English, so long ago that we've forgotten it. In French, "blond" and "brunet" are masculine and "blonde" and "brunette" are feminine. Unless I've forgotten the right spellings, "roux" is a male redhead/ginger/auburn/russet haired, while "rousse" is a female of same. "Blanc vs. Blanche," "noir vs. noire", and so on. But English dropped adjectival gender agreement when Modern English appeared.

There, now you know more about it than you cared to know.

(Redhead included for at least the two guys I know who are bright and dark red haired around here. There may be a certain fellow of Viking extraction who is also, but I could be mistaken.)

Blue is blond. <-- How's that for a logically impossible statement?

But blond is not blue.

[DesDownunder]

In Australia it is quite common for us to give the nickname, "Blue" to a redhead, generally though, only to males.

[Cole Parker]

Speaking of French, unless I've forgotten the right spellings, "roux" is a male redhead/ginger/auburn/russet haired, while "rousse" is a female of same.

I looked at that and scratched my head. It didn't seem right. See, I'm someone who cooks a little, having a partner who is disinclined in that direction and liking daily nourishment myself. And one thing even a rank amateur cook learns about soon into that area of endeavor is the word roux. He sees it in cookbooks. Can't help but.

So, seeing it listed as hair color seemed, well, to put not too fine a point on it, wrong. My knowledge of French is very fragile. I do remember rouge meaning red, but rouge and roux aren't the same. So, I said to myself, I'm going to check.

I did, and Blue is right. Roux, slotted into a French to English translator, came back listed as various hair colors: ginger, auburn, russet, that sort of thing.

Rousse was something else again. Didn't make any sense to me. Old Bill, it said. Or, something like fuzzy. Very odd. Must be a French thing.

But, having learned this, I was very puzzled, because along with the definition for roux meaning reddish hair, it didn't say a word about being a mixture of fat and flour used for thickening sauces. I was pretty sure the word roux was French. I mean, it reeks of Frenchness. What else could it be?

So I went to an English dictionary and stuck in roux and found it was a mixture of fat and flour, and it came from the French.

So, if it's French, why doesn't it come up when you plow it into the translator? Why only hair color? I never did find out. One of those mysteries than will ever remain an enigma, I think.

My guess would be it's probably a French plot of some kind. They are paranoid about preserving their language, I've heard.

I don't know the connection between sauce thickeners and red hair, however. French lexicographers are obviously much too deep for me.

C

[DesDownunder]

My French is not of the kind for polite company, but I do have red-hair, or did before it lost its colour due to old age. As a young redhead I did have experience with thick sauce, but that is probably also not information for polite conversion at the dinner table.

I'm no help at all am I?

[E.J.]

Maybe a little help (but probably not):

Main Entry: roux

Pronunciation: \ˈr?\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural roux \ˈr?z\

Etymology: French, from beurre roux - brown butter

Date: 1813

: a cooked mixture of flour and fat used as a thickening agent in a soup or a sauce

LINK

[blue]

LOL, OK, folks -- though it looks like "roux/rousse" are confirmed as the proper m/f forms of the adjective, I'll double-check when I get home to my Dictionnaire Larousse. Meanwhile, I can 'splain a couple of things.

Oh, and good on E.J. and Cole's points.

Yes, a "roux" is a fat-and-flour sauce base. It should be anywhere from golden brown to deepest brown-black, depending on its intended purpose and finished sauce. You all have that quite right.

"Rouge" is plain old generalized red. "Rouge" is the masc. and fem. spelling both, of the French adjective. Yes, it also happens to be the word for a makeup red.

There are other reds, like roux/rousse. (I'll look up the etymology of English "russet," which is likely related.) How the spellings came to be roux and rousse have to do with French word and pronunciation history, which does have patterns, despite how strange it looks to us.

There are other special color words for hair color and various things, just like English has special words for certain colors of things.

La Russe is, however, Russia. (Just to be complete.)

Funny thing -- If you're bald, you still have to put the color of the hair you used to have (or you shaved off). Wouldn't "bald" or "none" make more sense?

(It looks like I won't go bald until I hit past my 70's.) (Unless I go wild and shave my head....)

-----

You know, I could bring up "homonym" (same name/spelling) and "homophone" (same sound). (No, not "that gay person's phone, haha.)

-----

Wait, we went from cats and choirboys, to hair color, to red, to French to....

Typical, around here. :p

[Richard Norway]

Classical music lovers should watch it, too.

Well, hell, I can't imagine anyone not liking it!

C

Cole, thank you for that. I listened and the dark haired boy seemed to know that the farce was on, he grinned at what he was doing...several times. Since this was YouTube, the suggestions at the end kept me going until I found Pavarotti singing Nessen Dorma.

Please listen and see it.

The man was 72 years old when he performed Nessun Dorma for the last time before he died in 2007. What a wonderful voice, filled with the emotions of the music and the words, They are in Italian, but you can feel the emotion as well as see it in his eyes and body language. I don't know if he knew that this was his last performance, but emotionally, it was his greatest.

Here's his best performance, with fell choir. I dare anyone to hit that high C today like he could.

[DesDownunder]

Thanks Richard. Every time I hear Nessun Dorma, I think to myself that if this was the last moment of the universe, truly would we weep, for without songs, art and performers like this there would no worlds worth living, no loving and no beings awakened to such beauty.

[blue]

I would just like to say again, "Meow!"

My cat approves this video. He applauds the attempt to communicate by these obviously more enlightened human boys.

[colinian]

Something for the ailurophiles among us, take two.

A CAT that loves water...

Cole

(posted for Cole by Colin)