The Whirled Wide Web

DiversionsFood

Nov 10

I’m not always entirely thrilled with having to spend so much of my life in a digital world, but if I were asked what my favorite thing about it is, I would say that without question it’s the ability to look up just about anything imaginable and find what you are looking for. In grade school I spent many long hours at the library looking through the World Book Encyclopedia trying to find information on one subject or another. I used to dream of us having our own set at home, though that never came to pass.

The problem with trying to look things up in the encyclopedia was that I didn’t always know what name to look under and it could end up being a long and involved search. Also, while the encyclopedia was a great resource for finding information on a particular topic for a school paper, it wasn’t of much use when trying to remember the lyrics to a song you haven’t heard in years or finding the name of an author of a book whose title you also can’t remember.

It was either in third or fourth grade that we read a poem in our English book that has stuck in my mind ever since. It was a play on words in the English language, and how words that sound the same can have two or more different spellings, or conversely two words that are spelled the same can have two different pronunciations, as in ‘I decided to desert my dessert in the desert.’ No wonder it’s a challenge for people to learn English as a second language!

There have been a number of times over the years that I wished that I could have kept that English book so that I would still have that poem. Not too long ago it occurred to me that I might possibly remember the name of the poem and that I might be able to find it on the internet. After a fair bit of searching I not only found it, but discovered that there were quite a few more stanzas than the two that we learned in our English class. It revolves around a place in England called the Harbour of Fowey. But what you need to know as you read this is that Fowey is pronounced ‘Foy’, as in rhyming with ‘boy’.

The Harbour of Fowey

By Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

O the Harbour of Fowey
Is a beautiful spot,
And it’s there I enjowey
To sail in a yot

Or to race in a yacht
Round a mark or a buoy –
Such a beautiful spacht
Is the Harbour of Fuoy!

But the wave mountain-high,
And the violent storm,
Do I risk them? Not igh!
But prefer to sit worm

With a book on my knees
By the library fire,
While I list to the brees,
Rising hire and hire.

And my leisure’s addressed
To composing of verse
Which, if hardly the bessed,
Might be easily werse.

And the spelling I use
Should the critics condemn,
Why, I have my own vuse
And I don’t think of themn.

Yes, I have my own views:
But the teachers I follow
Are the Lyrical Miews
And the Delphic Apollow.

Unto them I am debtor
For spelling and rhyme,
And I’m doing it bebtor
And bebtor each thyme.

How I wish I had written that poem!

In a zoom workshop that I taught recently a student told us about something that she learned in a Chinese class she was taking. Apparently the same word, “jing”, means both longitude and warp, and the same word, “wei” means both latitude and weft. So we truly are a worldwide web – with weaving encompassing the whole world.

As a bonus, here is a recipe that I like to make during the holidays –

Whirled Peas and Hominy

One 14 1/2 oz. can white hominy
One 14 1/2 oz. can yellow hominy
1 cup sour cream
3 oz. diced green chiles
1/2 lb. Jack cheese, cubed
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 stick butter
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 lb. yellow squash, diced
Package fresh or frozen green peas
1/4 lb. grated sharp cheddar
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Cook squash and onion in 2 Tbs. butter until soft. Add remaining butter and mash.
In a bowl combine first six ingredients. Add squash/onion mixture.
Pour into a buttered 9×12 pan.
Put the green peas into a blender and puree, adding a bit of milk if necessary.
Swirl the pureed peas into the hominy mixture in the pan.
Cover with the cheddar cheese and bread crumbs.
Cover and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.