Day Sixty Four : Agrarian - Parental Guidance Or The Pitfalls of Writing in a Foreign Tongue

Agrarian

Definition

1 : of or relating to fields or lands or their tenure

2 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of farmers or their way of life

b : organized or designed to promote agricultural interests

Today, an acre is generally considered to be a unit of land measuring 43,560 square feet (4,047 square meters). Before that standard was set, it's believed that an acre represented a rougher measurement: the amount of land that could be plowed in one day with a yoke of oxen. Both acre and agrarian derive from the Latin noun ager and the Greek noun agrós, meaning "piece of land, field." (You can probably guess that agriculture is another descendant.) Agrarian, first used in English in the 16th century, describes things pertaining to the cultivation of fields, as well as the farmers who cultivate them.

"I'm telling you, crop circles are the way to go."

"How are crop circles going to entice people applying for the job vacancies at our farm?"

"Loads of people are interested in extraterrestrial beings!"

"Yes, but are they also the kind of people who are interested in agriculture?"

"You get all kinds in this world."

"Yes, but i'm more interested in those that know one end of a hoe from another and won't run over the pigs in the tractor."

"It will be fine. Trust me. This is a great idea that is going to massively help the state of the farm - heck, maybe it'll even help bring some tourist money into the town too!"

"I can think of many great economical plans, but I don't think any of them (not the legal ones anyway) ever started in the middle of the night in a cornfield."

"You don't know that."

"You have to admit that it's highly unlikely."

"Yeah, but you don't know know that no successful business plans have been made at midnight in a cornfield. Maybe hundreds have and they're just not talking about it, in case other people copy them, also get great ideas and then they'll have a whole new field of competition. Eh? Mind blown or what."

"...sure."

"Oh whatever, just help me push this roller, ok?"

"Fine."

Miles above, the youngest child of the strackvick family was using the spaceships viewing platforms to earnestly study the creatures below for their summer homework. His father wandered in, with the vague notion of commending his child for their diligence despite a lack of parental guidance (The mother had asked the father to keep an eye on what the child was viewing, but really, how much trouble could a backwards planet like this expose the child to? After half an hour of looking at nothing but blue water, he had left the child to it and gone for a quiet lay down) 

He found his youngest child sniggering incoherently at the screen in front of him.

The child pointed to it. "Look daddy, they've wrote a bad word!"

Horrified, the father slammed the screen shut and made his child promise to never, ever say that word and, more importantly, to never let their mother know they'd seen it.