The fine art of communication

[rsc]

After you've lived with someone for a long time, you learn certain things about the way they communicate. In jwg's case, it's particularly useful to be aware of a couple of things.

• A remark that appears to be totally cryptic on first hearing can often be understood if you remember the conversation of which it is a continuation, which may have left off anywhere between five minutes and twelve hours before.


• Certain words, especially foreign (and especially French) words are regularly used as stand-ins for other words. "Seguedilla" for "quesadilla" is one example, as is an insistence on referring to a tall piece of furniture used for storing clothes as an "abattoir", an image I find rather disquieting. And one must always remember that, although he doesn't have much occasion to talk about castles, he uses the word "château" a lot, most often meaning either "cat" or "hat".

So, when he said, as we were going to bed Thursday night, "Oh, here's the other château", I was only puzzled for a brief period before I remembered that he had searched that morning for the hats that our two Canadian people used to wear, but only succeeded in finding one of them.

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[rsc.livejournal.com]

They have abandoned them for the most part, because they (the hats, not the Canadians) were getting kind of beat up, and they tend to get in the way. But it was decided that they ought to wear them for the holiday festivities; however, in the morning John could only find one of them, and Torrington (being both bigger and of higher rank) claimed the right to wear it. As the above indicates, John found Quentin's hat that night.