Ponting

The whale incident had, of course, inspired numerous quips about Jonah ... This latest mishap revived all the former quizzing about the evil-eye propensities of my camera, and I was once again the butt for no end of twittering about the peril of "ponting" for Ponko... the more I protested... the more persistently these crimes were fastened on to me. But such railleries were always good-natured, and everyone in the Hut was subjected to them whenever the slightest occasion presented.

After horse exercising I went up the Ramp, and in the afternoon posed, or as we call it here, "ponted" for Ponting with several of the others as a foreground to the hut and Mount Erebus in the cinematograph.

Taylor had invented a new verb, consisting of the first syllable of my name "to pont', meaning 'to pose, until nearly frozen, in all sorts of uncomfortable positions' for my photographs. This latest mishap revived all the former quizzing about the evil-eye propensities of my camera, and I was once again the butt for no end of twitting about 'the peril of "ponting" for Ponko' - the latter being my nickname.

When Ponko was not ponting or processing his plates or teaching his colleages how to take photographs, he had an additional duty to lecture to the party of thirty-three who were over wintering at the base camp on Cape Evans.

Ponting came along and after complimenting us on our villainous appearance, begged us to remain picturesque until the sun showed enough light for a photograph! Luckily we had only to wait a few hours for this specimen of 'ponting'.

Clissold the excellent cook, who should have gone with the motor party, tumbled off a small iceberg and concussed himself while posing or 'ponting' as it had come to be known- Griffith Taylor, with his usual wit, had defined 'to pont' as 'to spend a deuce of a time posing in an uncomfortable position'.