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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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speaking of tangled webs (weren't we?), the 2nd OED citation for aile reads thusly:
c1386 Chaucer Knt.'s T. 1619, I am thyn Aiel redy at thy wille.
the 1st citation is almost indecipherable, is this what you were referring to Ann?
1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xv. 317 To Šiue fram Šowre eyres · þat Šowre ayeles Šow lefte. [note the Icelandic thorn!]
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Joined: Sep 2000
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2000
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> þat Šowre ayeles Šow lefte. [note the Icelandic thorn!] And here's me thinking it was only useful for emoticons :-þ Can't think where I got that idea, tsuwm 
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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Love the thorn - though presumably you will allow those (like me) with less comprehensive type sets, to replace it with 'th'?
In any case, in the Langland citation, isn't the meaning 'ails'? Or have I missed the point? Perhaps an old person (see Bel's post) is an ailing person?
Anyway - I'm glad to see the resurrection of ayleurs - when I am old and grey and sitting by the fire, I shall think of thee...
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Joined: Mar 2000
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addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2000
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Incidentally, has anyone ever heard of a grandmother clock?
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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Absolutely! A grandmother clock is a smaller, less expensive, usually less ornate version of a Grandfather's clock. In UK I believe it's a case clock.
There's an old song
"The Grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf/so it stood eighty years on the floor/ It was taller by half than the old man himself/ but it weighed not a pennyweight more" ....
there's a bit in there I forget....it ends with :
"...but it stopped /short/never to go again when the old man died."
Ah, sigh, sure and it brought a tear to the eye of an older, more sentimental generation.
I'm sure you'll get more on clocks from the TAGG. Aloha, wow
PS who wants to hazard a guess on TAGG ...my try at a new acronym. Aloha wow
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
There's an old song
"The Grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf/so it stood eighty years on the floor/ It was taller by half than the old man himself/ but it weighed not a
pennyweight more" ....
there's a bit in there I forget....it ends with :
"...but it stopped /short/never to go again when the old man died."
i have heard this song, it was written some time after the US Civil war, and the author other songs are well known...
Any barbarshop quartettes out there? About 20 years ago, a folk music show on WNYC, Woody's Children, (public radio) did a whole show on the songs of the man....
he also wrote some patriotic/propoganda songs for union -- though grandfathers clock was a later song.
the line "but it stopped /short/never to go again when the old man died." was part of the refrain (burden)
the only other song i remember for a series, was a related show about political songs that consists entirely of versions of "Rosen the bough" (For Lincoln and liberty too!)
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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>In UK I believe it's a case clock. Funny, I've been told that before by an American friend but I've always called them gradfather/grandmother clocks, depending on size. I think that you are right, technically, they are called long case clocks but they are colloquially known as grandfather clocks. http://www.grandfatherclockshop.co.uk/
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Joined: Nov 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
I picked up "long case clock" watching the experts on the British edition of "Antiques Roadshow." I'm fortunate in that in my area we get Public Television from Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire! The British "Roadshow" airs on both the Boston Public Television Station and the New Hampshire one. wow
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
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>.I don't know him from a hole in the wall
This may well be a takeoff on the phrase: Didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground." Years ago I ran across a humorous book of puns, each one a shaggy dog story built around the phrase I quoted. One of them was about the novice yachtsman who went aground and drowned after making a navigation mistake off Nantucket. His final ship's log entry read "Didn't know Mass. from a shoal in the sound." Another one was about the illiterate former slave who was sent to retrieve by stealth the body of his former master, a collateral descendant of George Washington, who had died in a Union POW camp. He brought back by mistake the body of a man named Washinsky, leading him to lament "Didn't know massa from a pole in the ground."
I guess you get the picture. I was raised in a demented household, which explains my tendency to nefandity (with apologies to tsuwm if nefandity isn't a real word: it should be.)
TEd
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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WOW:
There was a great deal of discussion about ayleurs; some people loved it, others did not. I've assumed all along that those who hated it are probably cat-kickers too.
OK, tsuwm, is that as nefandous a pun as you are likely to get??? GRIN!!!
TEd
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