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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
In case you've missed it, there is a fascinating discussion going on in Weekly Themes about fences and walls.
Out of that discussion, I came across a term 'crinkle-crankle walls,' which turned out to be the predecessors of Jefferson's serpentine walls. MW defined crinkle-crankle this way:
"Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: crinkle + crankle
: a winding in and out : SINUOSITY, ZIGZAG "
And that made me wonder about local terms for, well, sinuosity, which is such a luscious term in its own right.
We've got serpentine, crinkle-crankle [Do you really use this term somewhere in Great Britain?], zigzag, sawtoothed-edge and the luscious sinuosity. I would think wavering might be related.
What other terms might describe a line that is moving back and forth, either in curves or zigzags? And when might the term be practically applied, as in the serpentine or crinkle-crankle wall or zigzag-edged pinking shears?
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
corregated, cordaroy
whoops, make that corrugated and corduroy
(thanks,WW! and least i know my post are read, (so i am not ending up as chopped liver!)
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
They were big men, these MacDonalds, full of music, Gaelic poetry, and the lore of the Highlands. Their swords, great claymores that had to be held with two hands, had flashed at Inverlochy, Killiecrankie, Sheriffmuir, Prestonpans and Culloden, and their pipes had played laments every time a Keppoch chief died.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
crinkle-crankle [Do you really use this term somewhere in Great Britain?], ~ WW
Well, can't say I've ever heard it. I'd be more inclined to associate it with a noise than something visual.
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
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meandering one of my favorite words
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addict
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addict
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flexuous, tortuous, wiggly
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
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Well, I finally got around to looking into this word, and what should I find in Partridge's Dictionary of Slang but crinkum-crankum quaintly glossed as: "The pudendum muliebre: ca. 1780-1870. Grosse, 3rd ed. Ex the S.E. sense (cf. crinkle-crankle), a winding way. Cf. crinkums, q.v. —2. In pl. (crinkum-crankums), tortuous handwriting.: colloq. (-1887)." And under crinkums "A venereal disease."
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Crinkums - little curlycue spirochaetes - Treponema pallidum
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
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The definition of crinkums-crankums brings to mind a 17th century poem about the dangers of illicit conubiality in which the term was indeed used to warn young men of the problems non-licit nooky can cause.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
where else are you going to find the words/phrases crinkum-crankums, illicit conubiality, and nooky - all in the same sentence?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
I see the strait-laced OED doesn't profess to exactly understand the full 'in and out' sense of the colloquial that nuncle finds in Partridge! But it does have a description perhaps worth quoting for its sheer economical poetry:
A winding in and out, a zigzag, sinuosity.
and then there's cringle:
1. Naut. A ring or eye of rope, containing a thimble, worked into the bolt-rope of a sail, for the attachment of a rope.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
But the etymology of Kriss Kringle is quite straight-forward:
Kriss Kringle [ˌkr©¥s 'kr©¥©¯gəl]
noun (Chiefly U.S)
another name for: Santa Claus
[ETYMOLOGY: changed from German Christkindl little Christ child, from Christ+ Kindl, from Kind
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> Kriss Kringle is quite straight-forward
yeah, he's good, not nautical :)
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