Lollygagging in the Market

Do you see the small figure in the red shirt at the top-left of this first picture? That’s Nick, carrying our fruits and vegetables home from Kensington Market on Saturday. I caught him in the shot by chance and it makes me laugh. It also gives me a greater understanding as to why he says that I ‘lollygag’ when we are out and about trying to get things done!

It is true that I am often running to catch up to him, as he patiently waits on a corner. On this particular walk home, I can think of four places along the route home that he stood under the shade of a tree while I caught up. He wasn’t mad in spite of the fact that he was carrying some pretty heavy bags, but I know it must get annoying which is why I do hurry to catch up so he doesn’t have to wait long.

Sometimes there are mornings that he just wants to get out and get on with things, and knowing I’m not a ‘first-thing-in-the-morning’ person, he is often ready to go out and do some errands before I’m out of my pjs. These are the times he knows I won’t say, ‘Just wait a couple of minutes … I want to come too!’

A quick trip to the market is particularly bad because honestly, there are so many things to look at there. No matter how many times I’ve been I always see something I didn’t notice before. It’s so easy to get caught up in the sights and sounds!

Anyway, back to the word ‘lollygagging’. It’s not a common term and being a lover of words, got me interested. I wondered if it was a new word or an old one. Since any word uttered by man can nowadays be found on some dictionary or another on the web, I first wanted to see if this was a legitimate enough word to find in our hard-copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary. It wasn’t! aha … not a real word I thought. But after finding it defined in several places online, I saw a single reference to an alternate spelling, with an “A” instead of an “O”. Lallygagging. And this version I did find in the hard-copy of the dictionary.

Lallygagging : 1. Loiter 2. Cuddle Amorously. Wow, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing the second use of the word in the market. Especially after making the man wait like that!

Apparently it was first used in 1868. Synonyms include : Dither, Dilly-dally, Dawdle and Diddle.

All funny words in themselves. So I ask you, ‘What would you call straggling behind, if you could only use one word?’. I think I’ll go with ‘dawdle’!

So here are some shots I took while dawdling in the market on Saturday.

Note the one where the girl is looking to the left. There was this guy walking down the street yelling into his cell phone. He had everyone rolling their eyes. The market is a very relaxed place where it is most uncommon to hear anyone yelling.

Thanks for sharing your time and taking a look. I do appreciate your visit.
xo loulou

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