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old hand
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old hand
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I may be waaaaay off base here, but might there be a connection with the French word "toit," meaning "roof?" The vulva does somewhat resemble a roof, having two halves that peak at the center, and the pronunciation is similar except for having no "t" at the end..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> snip this thread well bill, that is of course the same OED stuff I read, and I'm thinking there's no real obvious reason for the buttocks sense to have developed in the U.S., and I was merely entertaining the possibility that you might be onto (or on) something. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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If there was a connection, it would have been a long time ago, and just not gotten into print. But I am grateful for the information provided.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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Dear Jackie: There is a relationship between spire and spiral but it is very complicated. I looked at the dictionary for half an hour and couldn't figure out any interesting way of discussing it. I have always wondered if the spiral top of a conch gave some prehistoric man an idea for a boring tool. I looked on internet for information about the chonchoid curve, but am unable to figure out why Nicomedes named this curve after the shell .
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old hand
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old hand
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Golly gee whillikers, Dr. Bill, I'm amazed that you haven't connected all this to spirochetes in some way by now!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
I may be waaaaay off base here, but might there be a connection with the French word "toit," meaning "roof?" The vulva does somewhat resemble a roof, having two halves that peak at the center, and the pronunciation is similar except for having no "t" at the end.
This extrapolation sounds reasonable Geoff but would only be applicable if we used, or ever used, the word toit to describe the vulva; which we do not. I will not write the names used as most are quite crude but none really resemble toit or twat.
I checked my Larousse, Petit Robert and Dictionnaire de la langue française just in case. They do not have that definition either.
Oh well, good try though.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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looked on internet for information about the chonchoid curve, but am unable to figure out why Nicomedes named this curve after the shell
Okay-- what is a chonchoid curver? is it the curve that is a ratio related to "golden rectangles"?-- (i think the company Sybase uses it in there logo-- )
Its on of those math things, that i never really studied, but have come across--and the resulting spiral -- is one of those curious things that is also found in nature-- { like the sequence of numbers named after....(it is on the tip of my tongue.. Fab..?? Fib..??) 0, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13...} the curve is found in seashells, such as conch shells, and other natural forms.
Or is it something else entireley?
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veteran
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veteran
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Thwart
Don't snip yet. I don't know what kind of sanitation arrangements there may have been in former times on ships; I imagine there were none. So if you didn't have a nice flushing head like we have today, what did you do when you had a load to dump? My guess is that your bum went over the thwart. So, if "thwart" was pronounced in a New England accent, or some English accent and came out "twaht", is that a connection (connexion)? Hmmm.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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My guess is that your bum went over the thwart.
Actually, it covered a bucket (really).
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addict
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