Nimbyism

There's always more words to learn in the English language. Since I was a teenager and used to sit down and study the dictionary, I've always been interested in expanding my vocabulary. Recently, when watching a video on the negative effects of wind turbines, I heard mention of a word that I hadn't heard before. I wasn't sure how to spell it but it was either   or nimbyism. Turns out it was the latter and the word is an acronym whose letters derive from the phrase not in my back yard.

Here is a definition from dictionary.com:

nimbyism: opposition by local citizens to the locating in their neighbourhood of a civic project, as a jail, garbage dump, or drug rehabilitation centre, that, though needed by the larger community, is considered unsightly, dangerous, or likely to lead to decreased property values.

The term nimby can be used to describe a person who practised nimbyism:

nimby: a person who resists unwanted development, such as manufacturing plants, prisons, power companies, or chemical companies in his or her own neighbourhood or town. 

The term has its own entry in Wikipedia where the observation is made that the term is usually applied to opponents of a development, implying that they have narrow, selfish, or myopic views. Its use is often pejorative. It also states that the acronym, as opposed to the phrase for which it stands, seems to have into use around 1980.

Figure 1

It's the sort of concept that lends itself to humour, as the cartoons in Figure 1 and Figure 2 illustrate.

Figure 2

WiFi Problems with MacBook Pro

My somewhat dated MacBook Pro is still serving me faithfully but I've had problems with getting it to connect with WiFi repeaters. 

I have a TP-LINK TL-WA855RE N300 Wi-Fi Wall Plug Range Extender/Repeater/Access Point and was having no end of trouble getting my MacBook Pro to maintain a WiFi connection to it. It would connect but soon an IP conflict message would appear and the connection would be broken. Having become so reliant on WiFi, I'd forgotten that this repeater has an Ethernet port. 

When I remembered, I then used a wired connection. My MacBook was assigned an IP address and that was the end of my problems. I need the repeater in my study, which is a little out of range of the TP-Link router, and so the lack of mobility is not a problem. I can simply turn the WiFi back on when I'm elsewhere in the house. 

The problem only occurred with the MacBook. My Samsung smartphone experienced no such problems. So the WiFi connectivity problem was never resolved but an alternative connectivity solution came to the rescue. Whether this same problem occurs with the latest MacBooks I don't know. 

Of course I don't have a dedicated Ethernet port on my MacBook Pro and so I needed to use a dongle, which fortunately I already had in my possession. With that and an Ethernet cable, I've had no further problems. It's just a reminder that, even in the world of technology, everything old can be new again. Once upon a time, there was no WiFi and Internet connectivity, when there was an Internet to connect to, was achieved via cables. Now, in my study, I'm living in the past.

Our Andy's Gone With Cattle Now

Taken from here

I was thinking of words that rhyme with sandy and was reminded of Henry Lawson's poem "Andy's Gone With Cattle" that I first encountered when I was in high school. I don't know what a non-native speaker, or even an American, would make of some of this verse. Apart from the place names, there's terms like squatter and Blucher that would be rather challenging, although one might suspect that Blucher is a dog since it "howls all night". According to Wikipedia, the poem was first published in The Australian Town & Country Journal on 13 October 1888.

Anyway, the poem was brought to mind because the name Andy rhymes with sandy. What are some other words that rhyme? RhymeZone provides 79 examples of words and phrases that rhyme with Andy. These are:

Words of two syllables:

andee, andie, bandi, bandie, bandy, blandy, brandee, brandi, brandie, brandy, candi, candie, candy, chandi, dandi, dandie, dandy, gandee, gandi, gandy, grandee, grandi, grandy, handi, handy, hand he, kandi, kandy, landi, landy, land he, lan di, mandi, mandie, mandy, pandi, pandy, plan d, randi, randy, sandee, sandhi, sandi, sandie, sandy, shandi, shandy, standee, tandy, vandy, zandi, zandy

Words of three syllables:

brigandi, burgandy, discandy, fernande, fortran d, hard candy, islandy, jimdandy, leylandii, mint candy, mutande, rock candy, unhandy, verdandi, verthandi, viande

Words of four syllables:

alibrandi, barley candy, chocolate candy, come in handy, cotton candy, operandi, sugar candy, vallegrande

Words of five syllables:

peppermint candy

Words of six syllables:

modus-operandi, modus operandi

I've marked in bold the words that would be familiar to most native speakers (I've not bothered marking all the terms relating to the different types of candies, although I should mention here that a candyman once referred to a person who sold illicit drugs - the term is a little dated now). I had to look up some of the other terms and many are not really English words at all or they are archaic. Some that are in use either as given names or words include:

Figure 1: Andie MacDowell, aged 25

• Andie seems to be used as the female equivalent of "Andy" e.g. the actress Andie MacDowell (see Figure 1).
• Brandi is a fairly popular female given name (1 in 1818 females; popularity rank in the U.S. is 320) e.g. the singer Brandi Carlile
• Mandy is a somewhat popular female given name (1 in 3448 females; popularity rank in the U.S. is 475) e.g. the model Mandy Rice-Davies (associated with the Profumo scandal in 1960's British politics)
• standee is a lifesize cardboard cutout (usually of a celebrity) e.g. he had his picture taken with a standee of the president"; also someone who stands in a place where one might otherwise sit (as a spectator who uses standing room in a theatre or a passenger on a crowded bus or train) e.g. the allowed number of standees is posted".
• jimdandy is something excellent of its kind e.g. the bike was a jimdandy or he's a jimdandy of a soldier" (the term is maybe a little old-fashioned nowadays)

One phrase that's left out is fine and dandy explained as:

All right, excellent, as in What you're proposing is fine and dandy with the rest of us. This redundant colloquialism (fine and dandy both mean “excellent”) today is more often used sarcastically in the sense of “not all right” or “bad,” as in You don't want to play bridge? Fine and dandy, you've left me without a partner. Source

This post, like others, if part of my effort to make the learning of the English language more interesting via rhymes, alliteration and word games. Before leaving however, I'll return to the beginning of this post and make further mention of blucher, defined as a strong, leather half boot (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

The use of the term to describe a typeof shoe is perhaps due to the tough old Prussian general of the same name who fought against Napoleon. Wikipedia has an entry about him. Figure 3 shows a photo of him sporting his Star of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross: Blücher and Hindenburg are the only German military officers to have been awarded this honour).

Figure 3

The term squatter in the context of the Lawson's poem can only be understood in terms of Australian history. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article about the subject but the key point is that:

... the term ‘squatter’ came to refer to a person of high social prestige who grazes livestock on a large scale (whether the station was held by leasehold or freehold title).  In Australia the term is still used to describe large landowners, especially in rural areas with a history of pastoral occupation.

So in the poem, the squatter is more or less the landlord.