Playing the Irish flute naked

[Nanohedron]

He must’ve been snapped on a breather from double digging his allotment.

Could you translate this into something less idiomatic for me? I already had to look up "A&E" earlier, and after racking my brain I'm finally able to guess that "snapped on a breather" here means "photographed while on break"*, but the rest eludes me.


*Yanks use "breather" for "break" too, but at least where I live, "snapped" for "photographed" is uncommon at best. Idiomatically, usually "snapped" for us is when one has suddenly and dramatically become unhinged from stress, like the snapping of a twig; we might say, "I don't know; all of a sudden he just snapped." Or we'll use it to mean speaking abruptly and sharply to someone, as in "There's no reason to snap at me like that." Neither is really the same as the other, although they can often go hand in hand. So anyway, the combination of "snapped" and "breather" threw both into some doubt for me for a bit. Needless to say the past participle only increased my confusion at first, but eventually - once I remembered the word "snapshot" - it provided the key.

[fatmac]

but the rest eludes me.

Double digging is turning over the soil to a depth of two spades deep.
Allotment is an area where you can grow stuff, often vegetables, away from your home garden.

[Nanohedron]

but the rest eludes me.

Double digging is turning over the soil to a depth of two spades deep.
Allotment is an area where you can grow stuff, often vegetables, away from your home garden.

Oh. That's easy enough. I thought it might be slang for something else that was opaque to me.

"Allotment" I could translate in a vague way (although we use it in the States more as a purely legal term), but I'm not sure how common "double digging" is; sounds to me like a form of cheating.

Here's where I'm reminded that "garden" means different things on either side of the Pond; IIRC (correct me if I'm wrong), Right Pond usage generally means what Left Ponders call a "yard"; for us, "garden" specifically means a patch of some significance where you till the earth and grow things; a vegetable garden or a flower garden, for example. The rest of the yard would be the lawn, if you have one, and whatever else goes along with it that isn't cultivated in the sense that veggies and such are. Generally, though, when we casually say "yard" it often implicitly excludes what we call the garden, depending. But it's not an important distinction; not all yards have gardens, of course, and a garden may be included in "yard" in a broader sense. You could have a garden at a physical remove some good distance away from the yard, too; that would be the case with what we often call "working gardens", which tend to be rather large, but not nearly big enough to qualify as a farm.

If you worked anything called an "allotment" in the States, it would most likely mean the portion of land was assigned to you by a cooperative or the like. You wouldn't be the property owner.

[benhall.1]

We don't have a "yard". *



* said in a voice dripping with scorn

[Nanohedron]

We don't have a "yard". *



* said in a voice dripping with scorn

Tsk, Ben. So tribal.

"Yard" (in this case) and "garden" both derive from the same Old English word geard, you know. Norman influence probably has its part to play in "garden".

[cavefish]

[fatmac]

We have 'yards', usually a paved area, such as where you hang washing to dry, etc.

(double digging) > sounds to me like a form of cheating.

Far from cheating, it's hard work.

[mendipman]

We don't have a "yard". *



* said in a voice dripping with scorn

A garden here is the whole caboodle; veg patch, flower beds, lawn or more commonly these days decking, patio, barbecue area, kids trampoline and jacuzzi. The only distinction we make is front or back garden. Neighbours would generally refer anyone who sites their jacuzzi in the front garden to social services.

In the current lockdown I’m continuing to work from home on a research project using 17th century documents that I fortuitously photographed before this pandemic. Many of these documents are deeds and property indentures and they all refer to the ground behind a house or cottage as the ‘backside’. That term could raise eyebrows if used today. As in: ‘Do you want to come round the corner and take a look what I’ve planted in my backside’.

Good the topic has moved on. However I still can’t un-see that album cover.

[Nanohedron]

We have 'yards', usually a paved area, such as where you hang washing to dry, etc.

Aha. We don't use the term that way, at least residentially. There are shipyards and rail yards, but that's different. And usually our clothes lines are somewhere on the lawn itself.

(double digging) > sounds to me like a form of cheating.

Far from cheating, it's hard work.

Sure, I get that now. I just don't know if we call it that in the States, too; I've never heard it before. Truth be told, if you're going to go that deep for a good deal more than planting a tree, most Yanks these days usually rent a power tiller. Those that own one are of a different order entirely.

"Double digging" sounded like cheating or something shady much in the way that double dipping is a huge faux pas (which is to say, going back into the communal dip with the same chip [crisp] you've already taken a bite from). Without knowing what it meant, it sounded to me like some way of wrongfully finagling more than is ethically or legally acceptable.

Many of these documents are deeds and property indentures and they all refer to the ground behind a house or cottage as the ‘backside’. That term could raise eyebrows if used today. As in: ‘Do you want to come round the corner and take a look what I’ve planted in my backside’.

Oh dear.

Right! Let's get back to fluting in the altogether, shall we?

[Conical bore]

Fortunately I had seen that Herbie Mann album cover years ago, so I was inoculated. Here are a couple more to illustrate the theme:

[tstermitz]

Nano must not be a gardener.

Sure, I get that now. I just don't know if we call it that in the States, too; I've never heard it before. Truth be told, if you're going to go that deep for a good deal more than planting a tree, most Yanks these days usually rent a power tiller. Those that own one are of a different order entirely.

Double digging a garden is quite common, especially in my geography where the soil underneath the top 6 inches turns to clay. Dig once, dig twice. Throw some compost in the hole, and turn the next over the first... all the way down the row.

[benhall.1]

Double digging a garden is quite common, especially in my geography where the soil underneath the top 6 inches turns to clay. Dig once, dig twice. Throw some compost in the hole, and turn the next over the first... all the way down the row.

Yes. That's it! Not just double depth, but kind of making sure some finer soil gets into the bottom of the double depth trench, as well as the soil on the top layer being aerated.

[Nanohedron]

Nano must not be a gardener.

Well, I have been, but it never really grabbed me long-term. I built raised plots - a grid of four individual eight-by-eights for various veggies, and a four-by-eight dedicated solely to hot peppers - so at about 2 feet high, double digging wasn't even in the equation. I wasn't too bad at gardening, but I couldn't get a decent cauliflower head to save my life.

Really, working with trees and shrubs is more my calling. I might be part Ent.