Hello everybody,
I dare to add a little post. I haven’t found the correct answer to Tássio’s piquant “bumpkin” but I’ll find one some time “soon”.
I chose a passage from the novel “the adventures of Huckleberry Finn” written by an American writer, Mark Twain. (Yeah yeah I know you guys are more into British English…) If ever you can get a hand on that book: read it! It’s enriching in many ways, i-e, it’s meaningful, pleasant to read, funny, just… an American classic. Well anyway, here’s the extract:
“It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale under-side of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest -- fst! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs -- where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.”
To thrash: it can mean to whip or to move or swing about with flailing, violent motions (I’d say it’s this definition in the text). It can also be to work windward, against the tide or when swimming.
A Ripper of a gust: a violent/sharp blow of wind.
Yonder: distant but within sight
Rumbling, grumbling, tumbling: “a loud low dull continuous noise” (from www.wordreference.com) and for tumbling : “pitching headlong with a rolling or twisting movement” This I suppose was clear. Just listening to the words and you guess the sound of thunder! Great isn’t it?
Well that’s it! Hope you enjoyed it!
4 comments:
You know, I'm really more into Brittish literature, but I love Mark Twain. I've read some books by him, and Huckleberry Finn is my second favourite (the first is Joan of Arc). I love this book and I've bought it in English a few days ago (don't know when I'll read it though). If I'm not mistaken the extract is from a part in which Huck is travelling along the Mississipi with a runaway slave...
I'm expecting new posts by you!
Oh great ! I'm happy you like this book!
This extract is in the beggining of the book. Huck is actually not gone on the missisippi yet. He's on the island with Jim (the runaway slave) in a cavern. Of course, shortly after they both begin their journey down the mississippi.
By the way, who wrote Joan of Arc?
Well, I remembered they were in a cavern during a storm, but I thought they had already gone down the Mississipi... and the author of Joan of Arc is Mark Twain (I guess it wasn't clear in my comment...)
Mark Twain wrote Joan of Arc? Really? Wow! I thought you were talking about books in general... But don't worry... my mistake.
See like Joan of Arc is part of French and British history it never occurred to me that an American would write about it.. You just proved me wrong. ^^ Mark Twain may have British…or French ancestors after all...
As for where the passage is in the book... well I'll let you discover when you re-read it ^^
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