5/30/2023 0 Comments Left 4 dead bazinga![]() (Although this latter image seems to be getting rarer by the year.) It could be how each winter, we find ourselves pounding our hands together to get some heat flowing in our fingers as fractal radiant patterns of skin-deep ice glisten on the roof of the car. It could be how every summer, we are fortunate to have holidays with families and friends during weeks when the sun never really seems to go away. And then how each May, its green leaves seem to bleed out of the branches and then they turn a deep copper in the glare of the daily sun. It could be the people we encounter in our lives, for better and for worse! It could be how every April, the beech hedging out the back of our garden begins to bud the most iridescent colours. It can feel at times as if we are on something of a spiral merry go around. But it does seem that when it comes to how we act and think and move through our lives, we are all connected. Of course, this could as much be a reaction against what they have done as it could be an action to mirror or mimic theirs. Simply put, when you decide to do or say something, or go somewhere, or acquire something, it is all but certain that you are undertaking these actions because of other people in your network of friends, family, acquaintances or colleagues. How aware are we of the influence other people exert on us in ways both conscious and unconscious – on their part and on ours? There is a whole area of research – network theory – dedicated to understanding this. There is also the research behind the importance of good teacher-pupil relationships in the learning experience of children and young people. The research and evidence behind the importance of friends for good life outcomes speaks in a very practical way to this inter-relationship at the core of the word “pupil”. ![]() (Anybody who watched the Austin Power movies should be smiling now at the idea of a mini-me coming from a mini-you!) (WIth thanks to Paul Anthony Joyce, author of “The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities” for this gem of information!) ![]() So the word for the hole in your own eye comes from the view of another. Essentially if you were to look closely enough into the pupil of someone else’s eye, you would see a mini-you a small, doll-like version of yourself. The word “pupil” comes from the Latin for a little doll – pupilla (female) pupillus (male). Not intended for children under 12.It is a curious quirk of the origins of everyday words that the word for the black hole in the middle of your eye originates not in what or how you see – but in what others would see if they looked closely enough.
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