Like leg, arm is a word that is mostly associated with a body part.
Like being legless, another description for being drunk, being rendered ‘armless’ means you are no threat, in a rather awful but funny way by saying it.
I guess we all have a dash of ‘sick’ humour in all of us.
However, arm can also be used to describe a part of a structure too.
It could also describe the arm of an ‘armchair’.
But…
Arm also means to give people weapons like guns, usually from an armoury.
I’m guessing that a whole lot of people with arms is an army!
You can also say that taking those weapons away would be to disarm them.
It might take the long arm of the law to do it, too.
And to disarm someone doesn’t necessarily mean to take away their arms, but to ‘charm’ them with your wit and humour.
An arm can also be a river or streams tributary, so I could say instead of staying on the main river, I’ll take the ‘named’ arm, but just remember, sometimes this can be dangerous, getting off the main route.
On a boat, there is a yardarm, and this was once used to hang seamen who committed serious crimes such as mutiny.
A call to arms was to declare war,
And lastly, an arm of the defence services could be any one of Army, Navy, Marines or Airforce.
Just steer clear of the Navy for the aforementioned reasons.
Yes, it’s that little or big furry thing that’s also known as man’s best friend, a dog.
But the word has a number of other meanings, like a lot of three-letter words.
It can also mean to follow someone closely.
If you are going to the greyhound racing, you could say you’re going to the dogs, or it could mean something entirely different, like deteriorating in manner and ethics.
Then there are those employers who make their workers work very hard, and therefore could be described as making them work like a dog.
Some might even say that it is a dog of a thing, i.e. of poor quality.
There’s a dogleg, which could aptly name some of those monstrous golf course holes that sometimes present the challenge of going through the wood rather than around it.
Tried that and failed many times!
A dog man used to ride the crane load from the ground to the top, an occupation that would not stand the test of occupational health and safety anymore.
And of course, in a battle to the death, it’s really dog eat dog, isn’t it?
Yes, it’s that little or big furry thing that’s also known as man’s best friend, a dog.
But the word has a number of other meanings, like a lot of three-letter words.
It can also mean to follow someone closely.
If you are going to the greyhound racing, you could say you’re going to the dogs, or it could mean something entirely different, like deteriorating in manner and ethics.
Then there are those employers who make their workers work very hard, and therefore could be described as making them work like a dog.
Some might even say that it is a dog of a thing, i.e. of poor quality.
There’s a dogleg, which could aptly name some of those monstrous golf course holes that sometimes present the challenge of going through the wood rather than around it.
Tried that and failed many times!
A dog man used to ride the crane load from the ground to the top, an occupation that would not stand the test of occupational health and safety anymore.
And of course, in a battle to the death, it’s really dog eat dog, isn’t it?
On this occasion, we drove from Florence to Innsbruck, a journey of about 500 kilometers and via the E45, a trip that would take us about five and a half hours.
We drove conservatively, stopped once for lunch and took about seven hours, arriving in Innsbruck late in the afternoon
The main reason for this stay was to go to Swarovski in Wattens for the second time, to see if anything had changed, and to buy some pieces. We were still members of the club, and looking forward to a visit to the exclusive lounge and some Austrian champagne.
Sadly, there were no new surprises waiting, and we came away a little disappointed.
We were staying at the Innsbruck Hilton, where we stayed the last time, and it only a short walk to the old town.
From the highest level of the hotel, it is possible to get a look at the mountains that surround the city. This view is in the direction we had driven earlier, from Florence.
The change in the weather was noticeable the moment we entered the mountain ranges.
This view looks towards the old town and overlooks a public square.
This view shows some signs of the cold, but in summer, I doubted we were going to see any snow.
We have been here in winter, and it is quite cold, and there is a lot of snow. The ski resorts are not very far away, and the airport is on the way to Salzburg.
There is a host of restaurants in the old town, and we tried a few during our stay. The food, beer, and service were excellent.
On a previous visit, we did get Swiss Army Knives, literally, from a small store called Victorinox.
We were staying at the Hilton and advised there would be a large cruise liner berthing next to the hotel. There was the Arcadia.
This is the view from the other side of the hotel. Where our room was, we could almost walk onto the aft end of the ship.
We were also told this was a rather extraordinary day because there were two cruise ships in the port. particularly because it was near the end of the cruising season.
The other ship was two berths along, the Sun Princess.
Not as big as the Arcadia, up close it was still very impressive.
We all know this to be an intersection of two lines like a crossroad is at a 90-degree angle
But…
It’s an angle bracket that keeps the shelf up, hopefully with books on it.
Did you know that it was something someone did in order to get something?
She began to angle for an invitation to a party that she would not normally be invited to, or he has angled his answers to the prospective employer in a bid to be more likely to be selected for the position.
It can also refer to a position, or judgement, so that someone might say, try and see it from my angle, or another angle.
Or that it refers to fishing, and the fisherman or woman is known as an angler.
It can be a position from which something is viewed, or in crime parlance, the CSI people will work out the angle of the bullet’s entry do they can locate the position of the shooter.
Angle can refer to people of Germanic origin, such as an Anglo Saxon
And, here’s something even I didn’t know, in Astrology, it is each of the four cardinal points of a chart, from which the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth houses extend anticlockwise respectively.
I have a passion for visiting transport museums, to see old trains, planes, buses, cars, even ships if it’s possible.
This has led to taking a number of voyages on the TSS Earnslaw in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Many, many, many years ago on Puffing Billy, a steam train in the Dandenongs, Victoria, Australia.
The steam train in Kingston, New Zealand, before it was closed down, but hopefully it will reopen sometime in the future.
The London Transport Museum in London England, which had a lot of buses.
The Workshops Railway Museum in Ipswich, Queensland, where once the many steam engines were built and maintained, and now had only a handful of engines remaining.
However, in the quest for finding and experiencing old transportation methods, we came across the Mary Valley Rattler, which runs out of Gympie, Queensland, Australia.
The ride begins in Gympie at the old Gympie Railway station, and as can be seen below, is one of the relics of the past, and, nothing like the new more modern stations. Thankfully.
If you’re going to have a vintage train, then you have to have a vintage station.
The Class of engine, seen below, is the C17, a superheated upgrade to the C16 it was based on, and first run in 1903. This particular engine was built in 1951, although the first of its type was seen in 1920 and the last of 227 made in 1953. It was the most popular of the steam engines used by Queensland Railways.
The C designation meant it had four driving axels and 17 was the diameter of the cylinder, 17 inches. It is also known as a 4-8-0 steam locomotive and nicknamed one of the “Brown Bombers” because of its livery, brown with green and red trimming.
Also, this engine was built in Maryborough, not far from Gympie by Walkers Limited, one of 138.
This photo was taken as the train returned from Amamoor, a trip that takes up to an hour.
The locomotive is detached from the carriages, then driven to the huge turntable to turn around for the return journey to Amamoor.
This is the locomotive heading down to the water station, and then taking on water. After that, it will switch lines, and reverse back to reconnect the carriages for the trip to Amamoor.
The carriages are completely restored and are extremely comfortable. It brings back, for me, many memories of riding in older trains in Melbourne when I was a child.
The trains, then, were called Red Rattlers.
This is the locomotive climbing one of the hilly parts of the line before crossing over the Mary River on a trestle bridge.
This is the engine at Amamoor near the picnic area where young children and excited parents and grandparents can get on the locomotive itself and look inside where the driver sits.
And, no, I didn’t volunteer to shovel coal.
This particular locomotive spent most of its working life between Townsville and Mount Isa and was based in Cloncurry, Charters Towers, and Townsville, before being sent, at the end of its useful days in the late 1960s, to the Ipswich Railway Workshops.
This word, where I live, had taken on a new meaning. We have telephone scammers who ask your name when you answer the phone, and when you say yes, they hang up.
It doesn’t take much imagination how they can use that recording.
So, I now answer the phone with maybe, which confuses the real callers who want to know if it is you.
Of course, maybe is one of those words that have so many meaning, but the best one is to use it while you have time to think of a proper answer.
For example, did you get the potatoes? You haven’t been out, it slipped your mind, or you just plain forgot, but run with a ‘maybe’ so you can judge the reaction.
Angry face, you know no matter what, you’re in trouble.
Genial face, you know that it didn’t really matter and all is forgiven.
Then there’s the person who doesn’t know you and comes up to you in a crowded room. Are you [put name here]?
Maybe. We want to know if we’re in trouble, or if it for something good.
Using ‘maybe’ in writing probably isn’t the best word to us, but I like defying the experts. You can always find a maybe or two in any of my books.
This word, where I live, had taken on a new meaning. We have telephone scammers who ask your name when you answer the phone, and when you say yes, they hang up.
It doesn’t take much imagination how they can use that recording.
So, I now answer the phone with maybe, which confuses the real callers who want to know if it is you.
Of course, maybe is one of those words that have so many meaning, but the best one is to use it while you have time to think of a proper answer.
For example, did you get the potatoes? You haven’t been out, it slipped your mind, or you just plain forgot, but run with a ‘maybe’ so you can judge the reaction.
Angry face, you know no matter what, you’re in trouble.
Genial face, you know that it didn’t really matter and all is forgiven.
Then there’s the person who doesn’t know you and comes up to you in a crowded room. Are you [put name here]?
Maybe. We want to know if we’re in trouble, or if it for something good.
Using ‘maybe’ in writing probably isn’t the best word to us, but I like defying the experts. You can always find a maybe or two in any of my books.
It’s what I’d always expected of my teachers, having to stand up the front of the classroom and look like they were in control.
These days, not so much, but back in my day, teachers, and particularly the men, were to be feared, and stern expressions were the features of an effective teacher.
So, in this context, it means a hardness or severity of manner.
Whilst in a sense that was frightening to us kids, another form of the word also can be used to express a forbidding or gloomy appearance.
Grandfathers also have that stern look, but it’s more forbidding, more authoritarian, more severe, more austere, well, you get the picture. A six-year-old would be trembling in his or her boots.
There again, in facing up to either possibility above, you could stand firm with a stern resolve not to buckle under the pressure.
Of course, not a good idea if you’re facing a tank (with a stern-looking tank master)
Then…
If you’re standing at the end of the boat, not the front, but the rear, you would be standing at the stern of the boat, or ship.
Oddly, when issuing instructions to go in reverse, not something you would say if you were on the bridge, you would instead say, or possibly yell, full speed astern, because you’re about to hit an iceberg.
Or some idiot in a jet ski who likes to think he or she can beat the bullet (or 65,000 tonnes of a ship that has very little mobility).
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 