Too Old For Dolls And Toys?

Newspapers report on a girl who has been rescued from imprisonment by a violent father and colluding stepmother. The rescued girl, now a teenager is shown with a doll. A male reader comments, isn't the girl a bit old for a doll.

Thinking about the doll, and the purpose it serves, I considered these possibilities:

A doll, like a dog, or plush toy, is a substitute for a mother or friend. It listens and is non-threatening. You can talk to a doll, photo, statue, religious statue, photo, or a plant, or shut your eyes and pray to a dead mother or imaginary friend or God who protects you.

You can also treat a toy the way you would wish to be treated. She does not wish to marry because she wants to protect herself and any children. So her doll is also a substitute for the child she will never have.

It's also the toy her mother would have given her if the girl had stayed with her mother. It's filling in the missing childhood. It's a symbol of mother's love (or aunt's love, or any adult and protector's love) even when mother is not in the room, reassurance that her loving female relatives such as mother and aunt are 'giving' and nearby.

Envious and enviable. Similar sounding opposites.

Check similar sounding and confusing words which are opposites.

A play was written about a woman called Mrs Malaprop who kept making mistakes. Word confusions are therefore sometimes known as Malapropisms. Mal means bad.

Enviable means something you would be able to envy, something able to be envied, because it is good.

Envious - a negative word, describes somebody who envies others.

Quotations from losers and winners about travel and life

QUOTATIONS For travel and life

A correspondent travelling in my direction sent me a quotation which he asked me to identify, a rhyme about roaming. It included the words 'never found a home'.

You don't have to find a home. You can make a home.

You only have to put the words into Google to instantly locate the source, a song written by Johnny Cash.

It is a pity that life's losers write lyrics about losing, even when they become famous. Like one of my favourite singer-songwriters, Amy Winehouse. Her most famous song, won't go to Rehab, no, no, no, struck me as having a negative message when I first saw her singing it. I loved her voice, though not her message. Her message was doing her no good. Then she died.

I prefer to remember and run my life by quotations from Benjamin Franklin:
'Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.'

Benjamin contributed more to society than sayings. He was a politician. He gave a good message and lived a useful life which gave benefits to generations, including me and you. He invented the lighting conductor and bifocals. I use bifocals to read and write.

Angela Lansbury, author of Quick Quotations For Authors and Speakers. I have several more posts about Benjamin Franklin, quotations and statues. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Why Discuss Tragedy on TV now?

Good reason for it being on TV now - just after it's happened.

1 The survivor is upset and feels the need to talk and take action. She feels compelled to do something.

2 People are more likely to listen while it's recent. In a year's time more recent stories might capture attention.

3 She wants action taken now, not delayed until after another tragedy hits another family.

4 If she waits people will say, 'Time she moved on.'

Lifeguards and fences for swimming pools

Another child dies in a pool. The parent thinks the toddler has run to the other parent. No, you can't rely on thinking so. You hand a child over to the other adult.

A child in a public area should be on reins. I was as a child.

Somebody commented, 'You can't have a lifeguard at every pool.' Yes, you can. You can have a receptionist stopping strangers getting in without paying. You just have to factor in the cost.

You can have a lifeguard in every pool. When I lived in the USA in Maryland there was a law requiring every pool to have a lifeguard. College students who wanted pin money at our block of flats did it. You had to have two lifeguards, otherwise you could not get insurance. The pool also had high netting like you get around tennis courts.

In Australia they found more people died in swimming pools than the sea so they introduced a law requiring all home swimming pools to be fenced with a locking gate. This was shown on one set of postage stamps which was what made me ask about it and look up the facts.