One of the online definitions of the word ‘yack’ that I read described it as trivial and incessant conversation. It sums up well the situation I found myself in recently when I was obliged to listen to the conversation of a woman close by. She talked first of all to the woman next to her about nothing much in particular and then she must have apparently got fed up of it and so she started talking to the woman the other side of her. Perhaps I am being a little unkind but it was a conversation that I really did not want to listen to. Whilst this intrusion was making it’s presence felt, an image came suddenly to my mind and I could just picture my father as an onlooker to the scene going, “yack, yack, yack”, in his own inimitable way. He might have thrown in another word as well!
Yack, yack, is also close to the noise that the jackdaws in our make. Perhaps I should use the word ‘made’. I have written about our garden visitors before, mentioning the jackdaws. The three or four that started out as entertaining as they were new guests albeit uninvited had, in recent days, turned into thirteen or fourteen thugs! The adults bred and then started bringing their fledglings to feed. It was mayhem, Hubert kept putting out fat balls – twice a day – and I told him he was being too kind, they would never go away and he smiled. However, it began to let less funny when he had to wash down the path every morning and they started making a mess on our freshly laundered sheets all together with their constant yacking and fighting. Worst of all, they had all but driven away the small birds that we were feeding. Jackdaws are not traditionally garden birds so I do not have any bad feelings at all about taking away the fat balls. Within 24 hours all was quiet again and the small birds are starting to return, gradually. Hopefully come winter the jackdaws will have found their food somewhere else.
Jesus had something to say as well about ‘yacking’ when he speaks in Matt 6: 5 – 7, “But when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” (v7). Inconsequential chatter, babbling or other which ever other adjective fits the bill, it can be really tiresome, perhaps I have just heard it all before and I do not need to hear it now. Having said that, no doubt I have done my share in my time, no postcards thank you, just enjoy the summer.
Pam