The CBC today says that guinea fowl sales have spiked in Nova Scotia because they keep the tick population in check. Ticks have increased dramatically in Canada as the temperatures rise. We are watching the clock hoping that we'll get a vaccine soon as guinea fowls aren't going to work in my garden.
And considering the clock, it seems an interesting phrase - tick tock - that's the phrase for the sound of a mechanical clock ticking. It once was described as tick-tack and as the pendulum grandfather clocks became popular the sound was described as tick-tock. It reflects a deeper, slower resonance. There's another aspect of the phrase tick-tock that is interesting. There is the subconscious rule in English grammar called ablaut reduplication. Reduplication is when a word is repeated to create a new phrase - bye-bye is the example. When the vowel changes in the repeated word, the human mouth naturally prefers moving from the front of the mouth to the back. So there we are with tick-tock, flip-flop, zigzag and hip-hop.
But why wasn't it described as tick-tick-tick? The reason goes that we like repeated pairs and naturally turn things into pairs. The brain assigns a higher emphasis to the first beat and assigns a lower tone to the second beat even when a clock goes tick-tick-tick with no differentiation.
Here's a new phrase that will likely catch on: Delulu - slang for holding unrealistic, delusional or overly optimistic expectations. It is catchy, isn't it?
Here's another human tendency. Here's a silly smiley face in the plane tree bark pattern.
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