Saturday update missing

I was at a meeting and then a dinner that ran late. When I got home, my little brother was visiting and so I chatted with him instead of wrestling with Japansese grammar. There will be two sentences later today after I've had some sleep. I hate to disappoint my public, such as it is, but real life is sometimes like that.

(no subject)

ポッター一家が不意にこのあたりに現れたら、ご近所の人たちがなんと言うか考えただけでも身の毛がよだつ。



If the Potter family suddenly appeared in the neighborhood, the residents might say "How fascinating!" but their hair would stand on end. Not even sure I'm in the right ballpark here. I am okay with the diagram, just not what the words mean. The verb suffix たら is sort of a conditional if-type-thing that provides the circumstances for the compound clause that follows. I couldn't figure out how to asethetically attach the conditional dependant clause to the rest of it so I just kind of floated it there in front. If it's any consolation, I could not do any better if this were in English. I've made my peace with this, though. The だけでも conjuncts the two clauses in the second half, as shown, so I think that's pretty decent structure, too. I just have no fucking idea what 身の毛がよだつ really means -- it looks colloquial, but that is the kanji for hair, there. It's a fair guess. Sometimes you have to guess when you're learning. I'm shaky on なんと言うか考えた to boot. Ah, well. We live, we learn, and we move on.

In other news, my nephew (2 1/2) was visiting and informed me, when I asked where the dog was, said "Not a dog. CRICKET." (That's the dog's name.) It's interesting to see how his mind handles generalizing and specific nouns. Of course, this will have settled into place by the next time I see him, so it was pretty much a one-shot for amusement, but what the hell. I have no cable TV. I get my amusement where and when I can.

ポッター一家にも小さな男の子がいることを、ダーズリー夫妻は知ってはいたが、ただの一度も会ったことがない。 I feel moved to point out that this sentence takes place ENTIRELY on page 2 of the book. We are making progress. Admittedly, it isn't very FAST progress, but it's progress just the same.



The Potters also had a small son and, though the Dursleys were aware of this, they had never met him, not even once. I'm okay with what the words mean, but the diagram for this is a bit of a bitch. Okay, a lot of a bitch. Yes, I have quite a few little things that probably I should explain since it does look like I was just making pretty pictures this time. I wasn't. Honestly. Er. Okay, I do like the final diagrams to not look like shit, but there has to be a reasonably solid justification for the way I do them. For this one, I could not think of a better way to show the nested structure of the thing than what I did with the slanty lines for は and が. I also appositived two phrases ("ポッター一家にも小さな男の子がいる" and "ただの一度も会った", both of them to こと which is a pronounish thing like "this". I'm not five by five on the way I handled these but I defy you to give me a better method. Anyway. I'd also like to point out that I could read this whole entire sentence without resorting to my dictionary once. Go me!

I also mowed more than half of my lawn, not a moment before it needed it.