“They” say winter photography
is often “sticks and snow”.
Thus began a recent photo-story from a reader of this blog and Ottawa neighbour. In the back-and-forth that followed his post, he made the comment that, being in Arizona, I was in the land of “no sticks and snow”. Now, at our Arizona elevation I’ll give him the “no snow” part, but on the “no sticks” part, well, I must demur.
Sidebar – I know demur–to raise doubts, exceptions, or to show reluctance–but I was stumped trying to use it. I got as far as “I must demur [some word here] the ‘no-sticks’ part” and realized I had no idea what word to use. I must demur at? Against? With? From? To? About? Around? I had no idea.
Of course, I could have changed to a verb where the choice was less tricky:
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- I must argue with this claim.
- I must speak against this notion.
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I could even have simplified radically and used a verb that didn’t want any preposition:
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- I must dispute this statement.
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But what fun would that be? So I checked with Google. Despite my 100% correct spelling of demur, the AI Overview squirted sideways on me; to wit:
Based on anatomical and medical usage, the noun femur does not take one exclusive preposition, but is most commonly used with of, in, or to depending on the context.
OK then. Maybe I’ll just handle this one myself, eh? And so I did, leaving any femurs and lemurs in the crowd to their own devices and another day, and restructuring the sentence to remove the object with/for/at/against demur.
Yes, I demurred, and I did more. The next time I was out for a desert walk, I looked for sticks. I found a few.
I found collections of sticks that with the barest encouragement burst forth into defiant bloom.
I found bundles of sticks nestled within larger bundles.
I found ground-hugging sticks, still doggedly sticking together.
And almost everywhere I found sticks marking the various stages of the decay of the Sonoran Desert’s signature cactus.
And so, this winter, like other Canadian photographers I too have sticks aplenty, but I have no snow.
