I know "mizzle" from Mrs Feet who is Lancastrian. Not sure of its origin.
Probably Anglo Saxon. I've not heard it used for more than 25 years outside the family (East Anglia). More like 43 years on reflection since that's when I last worked on farms.
I know "mizzle" from Mrs Feet who is Lancastrian. Not sure of its origin.
Probably Anglo Saxon. I've not heard it used for more than 25 years outside the family (East Anglia). More like 43 years on reflection since that's when I last worked on farms.
Wonder no longer:
4. Mizzle
A misty drizzle. The term is commonly used in Devon and Cornwall to describe a mixture of fine drizzle and thick, saturating mist or fog. Although mizzle might seem like a clever portmanteau combining mist and drizzle, it likely derives from the Low German miseln or Dutch word for drizzle, miezelen.
Assuming this is your Mizzle. I'd not worry about the Devon and Cornwall bit - given the proposed origin I would imagine it had a much wider and more Eastern origin and spread around a lot, seeing as we get a fair amount of it.
I know "mizzle" from Mrs Feet who is Lancastrian. Not sure of its origin.
Probably Anglo Saxon. I've not heard it used for more than 25 years outside the family (East Anglia). More like 43 years on reflection since that's when I last worked on farms.
Wonder no longer:
4. Mizzle
A misty drizzle. The term is commonly used in Devon and Cornwall to describe a mixture of fine drizzle and thick, saturating mist or fog. Although mizzle might seem like a clever portmanteau combining mist and drizzle, it likely derives from the Low German miseln or Dutch word for drizzle, miezelen.
Assuming this is your Mizzle. I'd not worry about the Devon and Cornwall bit - given the proposed origin I would imagine it had a much wider and more Eastern origin and spread around a lot, seeing as we get a fair amount of it.
Yes it's the same thing. Given the dutch connection, it could well have originated in East Anglia from the Dutch who were working on draining the Fens in the 17th Century. There's a lot of mizzle around there.
The point I was making was that I hadn't heard it used in the East for over 40 years.
At least its mizzle not pizzle - that's a very different thing entirely.
Our grace is brief - Dear Lord, Thank you for this meal.
When the children were young we took it in turns. I would try to add some improving sentiment, giving thanks for farmers, or fishermen etc as appropriate.
My son. aged about 7 or 8 once refused to say grace on the basis that he didn't like his dinner, if he said that he was grateful for it, he would be lying, God would know he was lying and he didn't want God to think he was a liar.
I had one cooking disaster when I had made lettuce and courgette soup. This is normally a nice green colour, but on this occasion I had thoughtlessly used a red lettuce and the result was an unpleasant brown. I tried adding cream, hoping to lighten the colour, but it turned it into a horrible sludge colour. However, not being willing to waste good food, I served it up. It was my daughter's turn to say grace. She finished up with and, dear God, please when we open our eyes may the soup be a different colour.
Our current grace is "FatherthankyouforthisfoodinJesusnameamen" usually said at top speed by my son. When I was younger I remember occasionally singing "All good gifts around us Are sent from heaven above, Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord For all his love" from We Plough the Fields And Scatter. Was this peculiar to my family?
@Martha not peculiar to you. The lady who was like a grandmother to me when I was young would always sing "All good gifts around us" as a grace.
At home I had a Ladybird book of prayers and graces; my mother would get me to read one of them.
You cannot imagine how much I hate that sort of thing. It's when you visit someone and they want you to join in. You absolutely cannot win. You either do something that makes you feel you feel uncomfortably self-conscious or you feel uncomfortably self-conscious as the only person not doing it.
Bear in mind I'm someone who sat out the hokey-cokey as a child. Wild horses couldn't have dragged me into that ring.
Thank you for the world so sweet,
Thank you for the food we eat,
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you, God, for everything.
We used to say this at primary school after our dinner break. I haven't heard this for years. Thank you for this memory.
At home, on my own, I tend to ask an ad hoc blessing on my food and offer thanks. If I have company or for our shared food at church after the Liturgy, I usually use one of these forms. Our people seem to like singing the responses, which is quote a different story from the Liturgy itself, curiously.
@stonespring, the reemergence of this thread has caused me to read back through it, and I picked up on this part of your OP in a way that perhaps I didn’t earlier:
Part of the reason that I use so many prayers is that I don’t want to use my own words (that will send my OC tendencies into overdrive) and I want to make sure that I a. Ask God to bless the food, b. Ask God to bless me/us, c. Thank God for food and other blessings, d. Ask that this meal strengthen me to serve God and others, e. Make the prayer trinitarian by more than just doing the sign of the cross, f. Pray for the faithful departed, g. Personally invoke and invite Christ to the table, g. maybe invoke the Holy Spirit too? I’m also not sure if I should add a Marian prayer to what I am already praying or not because that kind of thing is important to me. Shouldn’t I also be praying for the poor and hungry as well, or is it wrong to pray for them when I eat when what I should be doing is working to make sure they are fed? And what about the long list of people and problems in the world I should be praying for as well as things I should be thankful for? And should I be making more use of Scripture in my prayer at mealtime?
I don’t know where you are with this these days, but it occurred to me the short ferial grace of some of the the Oxbridge colleges—Benedictus benedicat (“May the Blessed One give a blessing”)—that I use when I’m alone covers a lot of the bases you listed. By not being specific about the blessing that the Blessed One is being asked to give, that blessing can be understood as applying to the food, the ones who eat it, the world, those in need, etc. And the Blessed One does that by drawing near. Granted, it’s not specifically Trinitarian (I usually accompany it with the sign of the cross on my forehead). And it doesn’t get into the faithful departed, unless they too are given a blessing. But in its brevity, it does cover a great many possibilities, which is one reason I like it.
I have noticed that with this and many other things regarding religion I have a perhaps misplaced envy of people who were raised in a household where the family prayed together, went to church together, talked about their faith and prayers to each other, celebrated religious holidays together, sang religious songs together, etc. Most people I know who grew up in an environment like this either feel scarred or jaded by it and think that I am ridiculous for wanting to do traditional religious things or are very socially conservative and therefore hard for me to open up to.
FWIW, I grew up in that kind of environment and feel neither scarred nor jaded, nor was my family particularly socially or theologically conservative.
When I was a student we would wait for someone to take their first mouthful and then ask them to give thanks. When everyone gets wise to this one nobody actually eats.
I read somewhere years ago of the very simple, "Us and this, God bless."
Having been a guest at a Cambridge college formal hall dinner some years ago and endured a long latin grace, I think that simple is good.
I'm rather partial to grace in Latin, and even like the special extra-long versions that some colleges like to trot out on Sundays.
"Benedictus benedicat" is my default go-to when I'm out and about by myself, 'cause you get funny looks if you start lengthily declaiming in Latin in restaurants. In Christian company I tend to default to English on the grounds that most people like to understand what is being prayed. Although the Scots of the Selkirk Grace is understandable enough to English folk, and I'm rather fond of it.
For all that we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful
That one has always struck me as not a prayer, just a wish in third person. And can't we be thankful now rather than pray for the next step in the journey toward actually thanking God?
I'm not as grumpy about this as that sounds, but I think about this every time I hear it, including from the Vicar of Dibley during her Christmas Lunch Incident we view annually. As a prayer, it seems so arm's length. I know our Lord knows what we mean. Thank God for that...or pray that we may eventually be thankful enough to thank God for that. Sorry...
For all that we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful
That one has always struck me as not a prayer, just a wish in third person. And can't we be thankful now rather than pray for the next step in the journey toward actually thanking God?
I'm not as grumpy about this as that sounds, but I think about this every time I hear it, including from the Vicar of Dibley during her Christmas Lunch Incident we view annually. As a prayer, it seems so arm's length. I know our Lord knows what we mean. Thank God for that...or pray that we may eventually be thankful enough to thank God for that. Sorry...
It always makes me think of Mr. Bumble in Oliver! To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it prayed in Real Life—in my experience it’s a movie or TV blessing used by the English.
I'm one of the "thank you for the world so sweet" brigade which I think we sang when I first started school in 1969. I still remember the grumpy teacher - Hands Together Eyes Closed! It was totally bewildering to me, coming from a family which never said Grace. Husband still uses his childhood grace God is Gracious , God is Good, thank you for our food, Amen. I'm more of the Thank you for this food and for providing for us today, Amen - not one taught to me, but just an expression of gratitude. I've really enjoyed hearing all the different Graces and the tunes accompanying them
When I was an teenage atheist I was for ever hoeing into my plate of camel turds (that's an allusion to a famous kiwi poet, don't worry) only to find the family piously waiting to say grace. I loathe grace yet paradoxically see its importance. When asked publicly I sing the John Bell "God Bless to us our Bread." On my own I cross myself, wordlessly.
I also used to hate the ostentatious grace huddles from pious Christians in the uni cafeteria. Somehow didn't equate with the "not as the hypocrites do" of the Jesus teaching.
"For these and all thy mercies we give thee thanks" was the standard one when I was growing up, at least in average Anglican families or those I got to visit at mealtimes. I had an ultra high church auntie who imsisted on "Benedictus benedicat" at her table. In recemt years I have not often experienced a grace of any sort so pleased to read on here that many still have one.
Comments
Probably Anglo Saxon. I've not heard it used for more than 25 years outside the family (East Anglia). More like 43 years on reflection since that's when I last worked on farms.
Wonder no longer:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4wltytTwXR73XKR3DXq1VDh/mizzle-and-smirr-13-british-words-and-phrases-for-rain
Assuming this is your Mizzle. I'd not worry about the Devon and Cornwall bit - given the proposed origin I would imagine it had a much wider and more Eastern origin and spread around a lot, seeing as we get a fair amount of it.
Yes it's the same thing. Given the dutch connection, it could well have originated in East Anglia from the Dutch who were working on draining the Fens in the 17th Century. There's a lot of mizzle around there.
The point I was making was that I hadn't heard it used in the East for over 40 years.
At least its mizzle not pizzle - that's a very different thing entirely.
For health and strength and daily food we praise thy name O Lord
as a round. Fun!
When the children were young we took it in turns. I would try to add some improving sentiment, giving thanks for farmers, or fishermen etc as appropriate.
My son. aged about 7 or 8 once refused to say grace on the basis that he didn't like his dinner, if he said that he was grateful for it, he would be lying, God would know he was lying and he didn't want God to think he was a liar.
I had one cooking disaster when I had made lettuce and courgette soup. This is normally a nice green colour, but on this occasion I had thoughtlessly used a red lettuce and the result was an unpleasant brown. I tried adding cream, hoping to lighten the colour, but it turned it into a horrible sludge colour. However, not being willing to waste good food, I served it up. It was my daughter's turn to say grace. She finished up with and, dear God, please when we open our eyes may the soup be a different colour.
At home I had a Ladybird book of prayers and graces; my mother would get me to read one of them.
I would be silently plotting their messy deaths.
You cannot imagine how much I hate that sort of thing. It's when you visit someone and they want you to join in. You absolutely cannot win. You either do something that makes you feel you feel uncomfortably self-conscious or you feel uncomfortably self-conscious as the only person not doing it.
Bear in mind I'm someone who sat out the hokey-cokey as a child. Wild horses couldn't have dragged me into that ring.
We used to say this at primary school after our dinner break. I haven't heard this for years. Thank you for this memory.
At home, on my own, I tend to ask an ad hoc blessing on my food and offer thanks. If I have company or for our shared food at church after the Liturgy, I usually use one of these forms. Our people seem to like singing the responses, which is quote a different story from the Liturgy itself, curiously.
I don’t know where you are with this these days, but it occurred to me the short ferial grace of some of the the Oxbridge colleges—Benedictus benedicat (“May the Blessed One give a blessing”)—that I use when I’m alone covers a lot of the bases you listed. By not being specific about the blessing that the Blessed One is being asked to give, that blessing can be understood as applying to the food, the ones who eat it, the world, those in need, etc. And the Blessed One does that by drawing near. Granted, it’s not specifically Trinitarian (I usually accompany it with the sign of the cross on my forehead). And it doesn’t get into the faithful departed, unless they too are given a blessing. But in its brevity, it does cover a great many possibilities, which is one reason I like it.
FWIW, I grew up in that kind of environment and feel neither scarred nor jaded, nor was my family particularly socially or theologically conservative.
Bless O Lord, this food to our use, and us to your service, may we ever be mindful of the needs of others, Amen.
Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and may these gifts/food be blessed
For all that we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful
Having been a guest at a Cambridge college formal hall dinner some years ago and endured a long latin grace, I think that simple is good.
I'm rather partial to grace in Latin, and even like the special extra-long versions that some colleges like to trot out on Sundays.
"Benedictus benedicat" is my default go-to when I'm out and about by myself, 'cause you get funny looks if you start lengthily declaiming in Latin in restaurants. In Christian company I tend to default to English on the grounds that most people like to understand what is being prayed. Although the Scots of the Selkirk Grace is understandable enough to English folk, and I'm rather fond of it.
That one has always struck me as not a prayer, just a wish in third person. And can't we be thankful now rather than pray for the next step in the journey toward actually thanking God?
I'm not as grumpy about this as that sounds, but I think about this every time I hear it, including from the Vicar of Dibley during her Christmas Lunch Incident we view annually.
We used to say “for what we are about to receive may the Lord grant as quick recovery”
Lord, make us truly grateful.
My Mum used to say:
God bless this food which now I take
To do us good, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Sometimes the last line was altered to say
And make me good….
And at the end of the meal
Thank you God for my tea please may I get down.
This seems to be a much-abused grace, I had a girlfriend who rendered it as "For what we are about to recieve, the dog has just refused".
That does involve using a word no-one over the age of 10 has any business using unless they're talking to a child.
Nurses seem to be in the habit of using it, presumably because they think abdomen won't be universally understood.
Yes. The grace was taught to my daughter by her Brownie leader.
Bless us, O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive through the bounty of Jesus Christ, amen.
I also used to hate the ostentatious grace huddles from pious Christians in the uni cafeteria. Somehow didn't equate with the "not as the hypocrites do" of the Jesus teaching.