language – Griffin's Nest

This is a phrase I first heard on one of my favorite shows, Endeavour. For Americans, it basically means “Be Careful”. Personally, I think it means so much more.

In the show, this phrase is said by people who are worried about the person they are talking to. DI Thursday says it to his right hand man, DS Morse, whenever they’ve been talking about things that have them worried, or has Thursday worried about Morse. Morse is incredibly clever, but he’s also very caring – too caring at times. This worries his boss so, he cautions him to be careful, but it a more meaningful way.

It’s also said by Thurday’s wife, June, to Thursday. This is usually said when he’s off to work on a case that is especially troubling to the couple. Or when they’ve been talking about personal issues between themselves. The phrase is said with love and so has more meaning than the usual “Be Careful” seems to have.

At times, it’s also said between friends as with DS Morse and his fellow officer, DS Strange. Strange has said it on more than one occasion to Morse, especially when the other man sees Morse bucking up against higher ups during investigations or with potentially dangerous criminals. Morse has said it to Strange as well, though more as a caution to how he was behaving rather than to his physical well being.

My Point? Mind how you go. A phrase that conveys more meaning, in my humble opinion, than a simple Be Careful. Leave it to the English to put more meaning into a simple phrase just be how you say it, than just the words themselves. To me, it shows more depth of emotion, of caring, of mindfulness on the part of the speaker than Be Careful does. I’m going to try to use it more often in my own life, even though I’m an American, and we don’t actually use the phrase.

Who knows, maybe I’ll start a trend! Brilliant is another British English word that means more than just bright 🙂 I’ll be trying to use that more often too.

Mind how you go, and I’ll see you on the flipside! Don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Crimson Knight print version : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1794494480

Crimson Knight ebook version : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008W9ZH22 This is available for free from Kindle Unlimited.

Crimson Knight audio book version: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RWFD7TC

Please leave a review no matter which version you get. If I don’t know how you feel, I can’t fix things or make things better.

*Note* I know about the formatting issues in the print and ebook versions, and they are being worked out.

Sounds almost like a song lyric doesn’t it.

In high school, I took French as an elective class two years in a row. Two years ago, roughly, I discovered Duolingo – an online language course that’s free. I played with it off and on for a while before not bothering with it up until November 2017. Since then, I have been working on it almost every day – the touted 5 minutes most of the time but sometimes longer – relearning a language I only remembered parts of. The course is lots of fun and quite easy. It helps you not only learn how to pronounce words, you learn how to read and spell them. Fluency is the goal for this course, and it helps you get there.

Now TinyCards is a site that works in conjunction with Duolingo. If a word has more than one meaning, Tiny Cards teaches you these words along with the ones Duolingo has taught you. Same with words that have more than one spelling. It just enhances what you’ve already learned. You can spend 5 minutes on this site as well and still learn something new.

I’m currently at 34% Fluency. I have found a site that has French children’s poetry on it so I can work on my reading and translating skills – when I feel I’m ready. This same site has adult poetry as well, but I’m aiming for the kids’ stuff first.

I highly recommend these sites as they have numerous languages to choose from – a friend of mine is learning German, and she’s gotten very good at it. Let me know how it goes for you if you do decide.

I’ll see you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!