Wednesday 18 May 2011

Wondrous Words Wednesday 18/5/11




Wondrous Words Wednesday is a fabulous weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.  

Recently I read Meg Rosoff's debut novel How I Live Now

1. Water butt (noun)

Piper helped me lug buckets of water up the stairs from the water butt in the garden and I filled the bath a little way and with a bar of Aunt Penn's soap, a bottle of shampoo and room full of clean clothes I started to reinvent myself as a person. 

 a butt set on end to contain water especially to store rainwater



butt - a large cask (especially one holding a volume equivalent to 2 hogsheads or 126 gallons) thefreedictionary.com


Wiki says that a water butt is what I would simply call a water tank. The images I found on google had impossibly small tanks though, 100-160 litres. 
I guess there isn't drought in the UK


Whereas ours is a trifle bigger at 10,000 litres.

like there's drought in Australia


13 comments:

bermudaonion said...

I wasn't familiar with that term either. I didn't know Australia was struggling with a drought. We're okay where we are, but parts of the US are having problems with drought too.

Julie @ Read Handed said...

Interesting term. I think I'd just call it a water tank, too. :) If you get a chance, my words are here.

Lemon123 said...

Never heard of a water butt. Seems like we would use that word often.

I'm trying to move to WordPress. I feel like my posts are going to be scattered all over the world. Oh boy~

lemon123 said...

Hi Bermuda and Julie, I'm learning it's alright to talk to other people while commenting. I think it's alright. What do I know? I'm learning.

Anonymous said...

I never heard of a water butt either, very interesting.

Yvonne @ Fiction Books Reviews said...

Hi Louise,

Nearly every house here in the UK has a Water Butt (the small size!!). They are usually sited alongside the garden shed and collect the rainwater from the guttering.

We have had so little rain here in the South of the country, that most people's butts are dry at the moment, and a hose pipe ban is impending.

Love your Super Size model LOL!!!

Yvonne

Margot said...

When I was a girl most families had a rain barrel but those gradually went away. Now I see there is a move to go back to harvesting the rain and the use of water butts is coming back. I'm glad to see it.

Kath Lockett said...

I thought the water 'butt' was more like an open trough or small well so I've been eduhmuhcated today :)

Annie said...

I understood"water tank", but didn't know "water butt". Thanks to you.
Here in France, we can see water butts coming back in the gardens. But the problem, to-day is dryness. No rain for weeks in numerous parts of the country !

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

A completely new term to me. A term that would make most of the children I know snicker.

Care said...

I've never heard of a water butt either. I do want a rain barrell, though. I see more being advertised as a environmentally good thing to have. I want a composter, too.

Care said...

I've never heard of a water butt either. I do want a rain barrell, though. I see more being advertised as a environmentally good thing to have. I want a composter, too.

Parisbreakfasts said...

I've heard about the collecting of 'grey'water in Australia..
The last few days in NY I've had a sort of water butt in my studio here - it's been raining so hard I collected about an inch of water inside a cooking pot. But really we should be collection along with everyone else.