Postcrossing Blog

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

I know quite a few people for whom English isn’t a first language—in Postcrossing, in the massively multiplayer online game I play, from various forums I’ve been part of over the years, and of course my wife and in-laws. My language skills are sorely lacking, though I can read French quite well, so I always speak and write in English with them. Every so often, we run into a communication barrier, and it’s usually because I’ve dropped some kind of slang into the conversation (often without even realising). Which got me curious about everyone else’s local slang!

I know I usually talk a lot about being Welsh, but I grew up in Yorkshire, and most of the time that’s the kind of slang that comes most naturally. So I offer two slang/dialect words for you: “maungy” and “chuffed”. They’re pretty much opposites, which makes them a nice pair to share.

To be “maungy” is to be whiny or sulky. I really wasn’t sure how to spell it, so I had to guess and look it up. You can hear the pronounciation on the Collins Dictionary site! “Maungy” is often used of a fretful child, old enough to be expected to behave themselves, moping around and dragging their feet and making a whole excursion into a painful ordeal. The word sounds so expressive to me, and I definitely feel a bit maungy sometimes myself… especially about having work in the morning.

“Chuffed” is a much more positive word, and one I use a bit more often (and I think is a bit less specifically Yorkshire?). You can hear how it’s pronounced from the dictionary. It means pleased, so you might be “chuffed” about good exam results or winning a competition, or finding just what you wanted in the shop. You might say you’re “dead chuffed” if you got top marks or won something really good. You’re definitely not going to be chuffed about someone being maungy, though…

How about you? Do you use slang a lot? Do you know any good local words? It’s a fun thing to share on the postcards you send this month—but we’d love to hear about it the comments here as well!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

It’s currently the season for international rugby in this hemisphere, and my preferred team (if you’ve been reading my writing prompts each month, you can probably guess which team) have so far lost every match of the Six Nations tournament. Unsurprisingly, then, my thoughts are drifting to other sports… preferably ones with lower stakes. Yep! This month’s writing prompt is about sport—about the kind of sport that might be unfamiliar to people from outside your own country, to be specific!

I grew up in Yorkshire, specifically in Wakefield, and quite near to the specific area called Gawthorpe. So quite regularly—every day once I was catching the school bus—I’d go past a local sign about the… World Coal Carrying Championships?! I just took this for granted as a kid: I knew the area had a history of coal mines, with the National Coal Mining Museum close by, so that all seemed pretty unsurprising, somehow.

Going past the sign again recently, though, I had to stop to wonder. Just how big could such a championship really be?! Looking at the previous winners now, most are from the local area, though I do spot a winner from Scotland in 2015. Looks like calling it a “World” championship might be a bit of an exaggeration, but hey, if you’re interested in a coal-carrying race, then I think sign-ups for 2024's event are still open—maybe you could make it one?!

For my part, I think I’ll pass… Carrying ten or so postcards to the postbox at once is enough exercise for me.

Do you know of any weird and wonderful sports in your own area? If you’re stuck for something to write about on your postcards this month, you can tell your recipients all about it—or you can comment here if you’d like to share!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

Since I joined Postcrossing, I’ve started thinking a lot more about stamps. I always used to have some around from writing to my parents while I was at university, but I didn’t think a lot about them until I started being more aware of the sheer variety available. Other people’s interest in stamps made me take an interest too: seeing requests to receive specific stamps made me look for them wherever possible, and then keep up with what other stamps might be available so I could make sure to use some interesting stamps. So this week’s topic was prompted by John (aka mezzanine2) in the forum!

For quite a while, even before I used Postcrossing, I personally liked using the “country definitive” stamp for Wales, with the dragon on it for first class, a leek design for second class, and a daffodil for international stamps. I had to order them online, since I live in England, but for me it was a little way of showing where I come from. The dragon is of course one of Wales’ best-known symbols, and is on our flag. The leek on a second-class stamp is actually a design carved in Welsh sycamore wood, and is another symbol of Wales: one of the stories behind that is supposedly that a 7th century Welshman who was king of Gwynedd, King Cadwaladr, told soldiers to wear leeks on their helmets to help them identify each other during a battle. And finally the daffodil is the national flower of Wales, and often worn by Welsh people on St David’s Day. They probably snuck in because leek is “cennin” in Welsh, while daffodils are “cennin pedr”… and daffodils look prettier pinned to your jacket!

In the UK, it’s also an interesting time as the stamps are in the process of switching from having Queen Elizabeth II’s head to having King Charles III’s profile. Sometimes at the moment I’m using one of each monarch to make it up to the right value!

How about you? Do you choose interesting stamps, or just get whatever the post office have? You can share your thoughts in the comments here, or use this as a prompt for what to write on your postcards this month!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

For this month’s writing prompt, Jane suggested a fun idea in the forum topic. Idioms and sayings related to colour are common, but can mean very different things in different countries. For example, “to be blue” means one thing in English (being sad), while in German it means something else altogether (being drunk).

I only speak English well, so I don’t know how well a lot of the idioms I say translate into other languages. For example, if I say “tickled pink”, is there an equivalent of that in French or Japanese or Farsi…? If I talk about “being the black sheep”, would that make sense if it was translated literally into other languages? I feel like “black sheep” might translate quite well, because sheep are usually white (if you ask someone to draw a sheep, they’ll probably draw something white and fluffy), and it’s pretty clear that the black sheep would stand apart from a herd of white sheep… though this, too, is probably regional. If you have mostly black sheep in your country, maybe the term for someone different would be “white sheep”…?

And what about other idioms? That seems a lot less simple. “Red herring”, a favourite term for mystery writers in English, for example… I can imagine that you could say “red herring” in another language and it’d just sound like you were speaking literally of a fish that is red. I’m definitely curious to hear whether that term translates, or how you’d refer to a misleading clue in your language!

It’s a fascinating subject, and we’d love to read your answers here in the blog comments. But you can also use it as a topic to write about this month, if you’re not sure what to say!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

This month’s theme is mythological creatures, and anyone who’s been following along with my writing prompt posts can probably have a good guess at where my first thoughts went, being Welsh: dragons! What mythological creatures leap to mind for you?

I said dragons were the first creatures to leap to mind (there’s a dragon on the Welsh flag, after all), and they’re deep at the root of some of my favourite myths and legends. (For example, the origin story of Merlin, in Arthurian legends, involves two dragons fighting under the foundations of a castle and causing it to fall down repeatedly.) That said, we’re nearing the Christmas season, and I have another sort of creature in mind: the Mari Lwyd.

Strictly speaking, the Mari Lwyd isn’t really a mythological creature. Traditionally, a Mari Lwyd is a horse’s skull mounted onto a stick and carried round by a person hidden beneath a cloth. It’d be carried around the village or town by a group, who would knock on doors and demand entry, with the Mari causing havoc by snapping its jaws and making a mischief of itself. It was basically an excuse for a party, with lots of food and drink and horsing around. My first meeting with a Mari Lwyd wasn’t like that, though: I read about it in a fantasy novel, Susan Cooper’s Silver on the Tree, where it’s a living creature of sorts, and chases two of the protagonists. It’s a genuinely tense and creepy scene, and part of a book I really love, so perhaps it’s no surprise the Mari Lwyd is deep in my imagination!

Of late, I’ve noticed a lot of people in the wider world talking about Mari Lwyd traditions online, sometimes adding their own flourishes (which is fine, as far as I’m concerned—I’m sure the Mari has caused mischief in many ways over the years). Every year, someone sends me some variant of the image I’ve included with this post: “If you’re cold, they’re cold. Let the Mari Lwyd in.” (I’ve received my first one this year, in November! Like mince pies going on sale, the Mari Lwyd seems to begin earlier every year…) The actual history of the tradition is mixed and confusing, but you can read more about it on Wikipedia if you’re interested in the ins and outs.

So this month, let’s hear about your mythological creatures! Are they creepy or friendly? How seriously are they taken? Are there any interesting traditions about them? You can answer in the comments on this post, or write about them in the postcards you send this month. Or both!