Wetbrick & Oldbook

What shall we think of a people who defined ‘monotony’ as ‘an absense of male friends’? Or, for ‘depression’, used the word that described the vulnerable phase in a crab’s seasonal cycle, when it has sloughed off its old shell and waits for another to grow? Or who derived ‘lazy’ from the Jackass Penguin? Or ‘adulterous’ from the hobby, a small hawk that flits here and there, hovering motionless over its next victim? Here are just a few of their synonyms: Sleet - Fish scales A shoal of sprats - Slimy mucus A tangle of trees that have fallen blocking the path forward - A hiccough Fuel - Something burned - Cancer Mussels out of season - Shrivelled skin - Old age Extract from In Patagonia (1977)