Words and actual things

[badgerbag]

There's knowing more or less what a word means and then there's knowing what it is. After a lifetime of reading books set in Britain and knowing that "chimneypots" are some sort of architectural feature on top of roofs, there was a point of visiting London over the last couple of years where I realized that chimneypots are indeed pottery things that look just like pots, sitting on top of (brick) chimneys. If only I could convey how mindblowing that was and still is. I am in bed looking out of the window at about eleventy million chimneypots RIGHT NOW, which makes me feel absurdly appreciative of how exotic and strange they are to me while being completely normal and mundane to everyone here. Fucking chimneypots. Who knew?

It also took me 2 years in Chicago to know what "tuckpointing" meant as I kept seeing it on signs and cherishing the sound of the word but forgetting to look it up. I may have finally deduced it from context.

For your entertainment I present a 52 page PDF about chimney pot spotting. Supposedly the number of pots on top of a chimney indicates that there are different fireplaces all going to that same chimney. Does that mean there are different brick flues each leading from its own fireplace to a particular pot??