ROPOPOV…

Just to prove that I can do new stuff here on WordPress, here’s a little something that I wrote yesterday. This is day 8 of my 10 day course by the way, so you won’t have to suffer this much longer!

There are times when I’m writing that I do like to invent the odd word. ‘Authorish,‘ was a recent example. I forget the context but it doesn’t really matter now. I know it’s not a proper word because my word processor underlines it in red and the predictive text tries to change it to authorised.
It’s not the first example of my butchering of the English language and it certainly won’t be the last. But friends, I feel that I may have taken this habit (some may say bad habit) to its extreme.
Yes, I fear that I may have taken that process a tad too far. Did you ever read that short story by Stephen King (or it may have been his alter-ego, Richard Bachman) about the guy always striving to take shorter and shorter cuts home until he’s virtually getting back before he’s set out. In the end he wound up with all sorts of demons from hell stuck to his front bumper (sorry, fender! I forgot how adept the Yanks are at skewing our language too).
‘What on earth’s he waffling on about now?‘ I hear you cry.
Bear with me.
Incidentally, isn’t ‘waffling‘ a wonderful word. I wonder who came up with that one? Our old mate Shakey Bill perhaps?
But I digress.
You see I was out walking the dogs along the canal towpath. The sun’s shining, the birds are singing, ducks quacking – you get the picture. In the distance I notice a chap jogging toward us. He’s a long way off. This is a good thing. It gives me a chance to organise the troops.
‘Sit, Misty.‘
But she had spotted him ages ago and is sat already. Border collies are good like that!

Millie, being a border terrier/ Jack Russell cross is a different matter. Call it little dog syndrome if you like.
I call it being a pain in the arse!
I command her to stay. She ignores me. I tell her to sit. Same result. Her tail starts to wag. Something is coming her way and she’s going to bite it on the ankle.
I grab her.
I wrestle her to the floor.
I attach her to a very tight, short lead.

Chummy rushes past in a cloud of dust.
‘Thanks!‘ he calls over his shoulder.
And how do I repay this verbal generosity?
‘Ropopov.‘
What!!?
Where the hell did that come from?
Was I conceivably Russian in a former life?
It wasn’t as though I had some well thought out response rattling around my brain and simply tripped over the vowels and consonants.
No. There was nothing in my head at all.
Who said ‘no change there then!‘ There’s no need!
Like I said, nothing sprang to mind at all.
Except, ‘ropopov.‘
Fortunately not only was I incoherent, I was also extremely quiet, so I don’t think he heard me.
But seriously?
‘Ropopov!‘
Bloody hell!
So there you have it. I have obviously tampered with my native tongue far too much and now the devil’s hordes have attached themselves to my bottom lip.
I’m signing out now, so ‘ropopov,‘ to you all.
And you can make of that what you like.
Well, I’ve got to get some use from it now that I’ve invented it.
And besides, I think it has quite a ring to it, don’t you?