Devonshire October November 16

But here’s the thing...
when everyone thought that it must have
been hunted to extinction by over-zealous
insect collectors.
But not so. A detailed study revealed that its
life cycle was completely dependent on a small
red ant called Myrmica sabuleti.
Devon butterfly plays
cuckoo-in-the nest
WE WRITE IN PRAISE OF THE
GULLIBILITY of a small red ant that is
being kidded once more into restoring
the extraordinarily beautiful Large Blue
butterfly back to Devon’s countryside.
The Large Blue vanished right across Europe
some 40 years ago making its last stand in
Devon in the middle of Dartmoor in 1979
The Large Blue’s caterpillar hatches on thyme
buds and then fools the ants into believing it
is one of their own grubs. The ants then carry
it underground to their nest where it feeds on
the ant grubs for 10 months before pupating
and emerging as a butterfly.
So what caused that disappearance of the
Large Blue? It was hit by changes in grazing
and myxomatosis in rabbits which left
grassland too tall and shady for the heatloving
red ant.
This cuckoo-in-the-nest life cycle means
there are now 33 colonies in the South West,
including Devon. All thanks to a better
understanding of the inter-relationships
within nature - and a small red ant.
Devon’s ‘Wow’ factor,
actually
THOSE OF US WHO TALK TO OUR
TELEVISIONS during early regional news
programmes will have noticed an increase
in the use of the word “Wow!” by presenters,
interviewers and interviewees in recent
months.
Most annoyingly it comes in the form of talk
of “the Wow factor”. But more frequently it
crops up in interviews on slow news days.
“So how long have you worked here?”
“Thirty years”.
“Wow! Thirty years?” (Notice the annoying
question in the response).
“And how many wurdles do you actually
splice in a day?”
“About two hundred”.
“Wow! Two hundred?” (And so on).
HOW WILL DEVON COPE when our ‘old’
paper money becomes new plastic money by
this time next year?
The use of the word “actually” in that question
is what linguists call a ‘discourse marker’
- words or phrases that help organise our
speech and writing but which aren’t essential
to the meaning of a sentence.
Exeter already has its own money that
circulates within the city itself, the theory
being that it keeps trade within bounds: so
Devon is no stranger to new-fangled ways
and means within money markets.
Witness our even older money in the form of
the Florin (remember the two shilling piece
aka the two-bob-bit? ) which has long since
slipped through the hole in the pocket of our
monetary history. But its introduction and
concept came from a Devon-born man who
saw it as the first important step towards
decimalisation.
He was Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), an
Exeter-born reformer, intellectual, and onetime
colonial governor who, in 1846, coined
the coin Guess with where? the idea Subscribe that the to UK our should Devonshire go News for the answer
decimal with 100 pennies to the pound instead
of 240. Shock horror!
Alas, Sir John was ahead of his time and the
UK’s Decimal Day did not dawn until Monday,
15th February, 1971.
Australia and Canada have plastic notes
already. Our new notes will be smaller than
the old ones, be cheaper to produce and last
longer but (according to an Australian reader
of this column) slip easily through the fingers
when wet.
Other examples include well, nonetheless,
like, basically, I mean, and okay. In ten hours
of recorded conversations one study counted
78 uses of the word ‘actually’ as a discourse
marker.
Wow! Well, like actually I mean basically if
that’s okay with regional newscasters it er…
should be good enough for us, right? And let’s
face it,we all do it.
JOHN FISHER
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