WARNING: May contain naughty language.

Friday, January 27, 2012

And a Side Order of Peregrinated Widdershins, Please.

Since I started this blog at the beginning of January I've received a few emails from adventurous and/or bored folks browsing the web who stumbled across my site.

The most popular question I get is "what exactly does 'peregrinating widdershins' mean?"

It is NOT a debilitating bone/joint condition which affects the lower leg muscles and shins. It is NOT something you'd buy from a street vendor in Marakesh to eat. Nor is it a small, well-insulated Arctic rodent.

Peregrination is an old word for simply wandering about with no endpoint in mind. Think of a peregrine falcon drifting on the thermals aimlessly before falling out of the sky at 217 mph to land on top of some poor rabbit's head.

Widdershins is an Olde English (you know its olde because of the extra 'e" on the end of old) word meaning a counter-clockwise direction.

I peregrinate widdershins a lot when I'm thinking. About anything. Writing, working, where to go eat for dinner tonight. Decades ago a customer commented on it while I was working in his datacenter. Just one of those dumb habits, I guess.

Mystery solved. Hope I saved you a trip to dictionary.com

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