How I learned about turnip-ghosts
May. 31st, 2003 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonI was innocently reading along in my current SF bok, The Shockwave Rider, when I ran across this little gem: Freeman smiled. The effect was of a black turnip-ghost. My initial reaction was: geez, I'm never going to worry about my writing again if this got published. But I wanted to be sure it didn't mean something real, this author not being otherwise given to flights of oddness, so I looked.
Initial google searches did come up with references, to my disappointment, and made it sound like a red herring. Whitehall used the turnip-ghost of a "communist revolutionary conspiracy" as justification for its actions in 1936... and so forth. This mystery story had a more informative quote: It lit up Miss Bunner for a moment and she looked quite like a turnip ghost - you know, all white and staring with her mouth open and her eyes starting out of her head. Okay, so a turnip ghost is a real thing after all?
I kept Googling and found out that in Scotland, the traditional vegetable used for Halloween lanterns was a turnip (not a pumpkin). I was sure that was it, but persevered until Altavista coughed up this page on how to make a turnip ghost that clearly identifies them. Little turnip jack-o-lanterns. So back to our original quote: really black guy with white teeth and eyes, big smile... ha. That could have kind of a lit-from-the-inside look. And now I have this bizarre new phrase indelibly stamped into my memory. Not the worst start a Saturday could get off to, I guess.
Initial google searches did come up with references, to my disappointment, and made it sound like a red herring. Whitehall used the turnip-ghost of a "communist revolutionary conspiracy" as justification for its actions in 1936... and so forth. This mystery story had a more informative quote: It lit up Miss Bunner for a moment and she looked quite like a turnip ghost - you know, all white and staring with her mouth open and her eyes starting out of her head. Okay, so a turnip ghost is a real thing after all?
I kept Googling and found out that in Scotland, the traditional vegetable used for Halloween lanterns was a turnip (not a pumpkin). I was sure that was it, but persevered until Altavista coughed up this page on how to make a turnip ghost that clearly identifies them. Little turnip jack-o-lanterns. So back to our original quote: really black guy with white teeth and eyes, big smile... ha. That could have kind of a lit-from-the-inside look. And now I have this bizarre new phrase indelibly stamped into my memory. Not the worst start a Saturday could get off to, I guess.
