Thursday, February 27, 2014

Scatter/Scattered

scattered p ppl EDD ~ 1 ~ few; SED iv, 921 Co, ~ few.
1 1986 Nfld Herald 15 Mar, p. 33 Merasheen Farewell [recording] is available in scattered stores around the province and can be purchased by mail order.
2 1981 PADDOCK 25 "Camp Seven": A scattered spruce is fit ta pile;/But only try ta git it!/You'll 'ave ta cut a t'ousand firs--/Each one will make a picket. 1987 POOLE 1 [We left Carbonear] and the meadows where we used to kick football and win a scattered game of rounders.

I love the way that word is thrown around here, it's quite inadequately covered in the above definition from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.

I hear it used a fair whack - usually applied to people and their doings and not so much to inanimate objects.

"I was some scattered last Saturday with all those shops I had to go to."

"There was a right scatter of cousins at that funeral."

I'm a bit of a scatter myself. I suffered a major disappointment in that the two actors who had first dibs on my play have turned it down due to the scatter of both the demands of their families and the serious commitments to rehearsals and tours for the play.

I wasn't talking about this major setback at all, or sharing it. I'm a right good bottler of emotions at times. It has gotten me into a fair degree of trouble in the past.

But over dinner last night with a friend I was able to let it all out. And alternative scenarios surfaced in my mind as I shared.

I didn't go the normal route (for me) and take it all on board and tell myself it must be a dreadful play. I was surprisingly heartened by my belief in it: in recognising there is a story to be told and it needs to be heard.

I'm finally my own cheerleader and champion.

Logo for the play:


Would anyone like to take a guess as to what the play's theme is?

20 comments:

  1. No GM :)
    The cards tell the story.
    XO
    WWW

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  2. Well let me see, we can take the obvious route and guess that the play is about...gambling. Or we can go a bit deeper and say...addiction. Take a different perspective and we can say it is about...messy people LOL or possibly the feminist view with the absence of the queen could mean...females as second class citizens...The pair of aces from a spiritual view could mean...evolution of the soul highest cards showing in the hand of life amongst the plebian cards in the background...and now you know why I was always caught daydreaming while looking out the windows of my math class... hehehe hahah ;D

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  3. Oh oops just thought of another...the red heart of love and how it can mess up your winning hand in the game of life...sorry just can't help myself!

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  4. Four of a kind?
    Great post - very thought provoking.

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  5. Playing the hand you're dealt?

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  6. No one so far. Not even close.

    Clue: What's the name of the card game in the hand shown?

    XO
    WWW

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  7. Fish, old maid, solitaire, poker? That exhausts my store of "names of card games".

    I was brought up in a Christian fundamentalist home that taught that even the act of touching a playing card would cause you to burst into flames! Even the Monoply dice were looked on as a possible tool of Satan by the pious mother.

    But don't I love the word "scatter", used that way? It must speak to an earlier Newfoundland lifetime for it makes a fair scatter of images erupt in my brain.

    My Dad's maternal grandmother's family "went out" to fish the Grand Banks in the 1700-1800s. At first they went back and forth, finally they just got tired of the commute and stayed. You see their names everywhere on the Island now, Shave, Bugden, Tilley and others that don't come to mind but are there none-the-less.

    Gin? (I just remembered hearing the name of that one a week or two ago on Downton Abbey.)

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  8. Game of Spades? Tricks and partnerships? Still don't know what the play is about :O

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  9. The only similar words I know of are scatty/scatterbrained; scattered as in all over the place; scatter as in run off quickly; or scatter as in scatter cushions (cushions in different places). Quite a versatile word in fact.

    Funny how we often interpret other people's excuses (probably quite genuine) as a reflection on our own work!

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  10. No idea but it would make a great Euchre hand.

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  11. I'm at a loss since I don't play cards. Congratulations on maintaining your belief in your story. That can be so hard for writers and playwrights.

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  12. I don't really play cards and don't know many games well enough to be able to know which one yours is. All I know is that you show a pair of Aces.

    I am glad that you were not devastated by the loss of your first two star players. It is true that one can take such a turn down quite personally. We do have a tender heart, don't we? But also a great deal of courage. xox

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  13. Wish I knew what that hand meant for the title of the play.
    I only play solitaire and the usual children's card games. However, I guess it's to do with poker.

    I like the new (to us in Britain) meaning of scatter/scattered.
    Sorry about the actors in the play and hope they can be replaced by other competent ones.
    Maggie x

    Nuts in May

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  14. I thought I'd be in the minority as one who doesn't know much about playing cards, but I see that I'm actually in with he majority of your readers.

    Oh, tell us please! :)

    Best wishes with your production.

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  15. You have got it in spades, don't you? And a heart. Maybe you are in love with Lemmy. Who isn't? Ace of Spades.

    My bet? The hand dealt in life. Not necessarily a full one.

    U

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  16. As for the play's theme, I'm also pretty ignorant about most card games, so that particular set of cards means nothing to me.

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  17. Hi All:
    My Irish/Newfoundland readers would know!
    This is the hand of game of 45, I learned to play it as a child in Ireland and was delighted to pick it up again in Newfoundland where I play it every week the community hall.
    It is known as "45s" here and thus is the name of my play.
    So there ya go!
    XO
    WWW

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  18. Keep believing, which will take some work I know. All will be well. The name of your play makes me even more curious.

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  19. If you are a bit of a scatter yourself, I am the champion scatter!

    Five card stud?

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