No, this is not one of my typos. We all know what a
calendar is. But I'd be surprised if any member has
ever heard of a calender. I learned it from my brother,
who was a chemical engineer, working at U.S.Rubber
footware plant in Naugatuck, Connecticut. To make
sheets of rubber, it was passed between large rollers
that gave it uniform thickness. And the big cylindrical
rollers were called calenders.
calender
SYLLABICATION: cal·en·der
PRONUNCIATION: kln-dr
NOUN: A machine in which paper or cloth is made smooth and glossy by being pressed through rollers.
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: cal·en·dered, cal·en·der·ing, cal·en·ders
To press (paper or cloth) in the rollers of such a machine.
ETYMOLOGY: French calandre, from Vulgar Latin *colendra, alteration (possibly influenced by Latin columna, column), of Latin cylindrus, roller. See cylinder.
OTHER FORMS: calen·der·er —NOUN
So, would you think that chintz, of which we've recently written, would have been rolled out on calenders since it has a glossy finish?
Dear WW: maybe of troy would know. I never heard of calenders except as my brother described them in making sheet rubber for the foxing on sneakers. The brand was called "Keds" and I didn't find out until a short time ago
that "ked" is Gaelic for "tick", and the sneakers did look a bit like a monster tick.
Dear WW: A 1935 pair of black fabric sneakers with
white foxing looked like ten inch wood ticks. And
the brand name was Keds. Be glad ticks don't get
that big. Bill
Well, this is truly one of the strangest word stories I've ever read on AWAD. What you are saying is some sneaker company looked at its sneakers and someone there said, "Hmmmm. These sneakers look like monster ticks." And someone else agreed and said, "But we don't want to call them ticks because that is very repulsive." So someone else said, "I just happen to know the Gaelic word for 'tick'--it's 'ked.' Why don't we call the sneakers 'Keds'?" Someone else said, "Very good. We'll call them ticks, uh, I mean, keds." And somebody else said, "Why, yes. Keds are for kids. And we'll know the truth: these sneakers look like monster ticks."
Now, wwh, you've really grossed me out because for the rest of my life whenver I look at black sneakers, I'm going to think that that person is walking, running, jumping around on monster ticks, quite disgusting.
I'm a bit doubtful of this, but stranger things have happened. First off,
ked doesn't much look like a Gaelic word, but I'm sure Hibernicus can fill us in on that. The only Irish word for tick I could find is
sceartán (var.
sciortán). I looked around under
cead and
ceid but to no avail. Here's an etymology of sneakers I found online. Seems that Keds were manufactured by US Rubber. I wore Keds as a child, but they looked like tennis shoes to me. I've always liked the British term plimsolls.
http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss1.asp?Num=4031
Maybe I shouldn't have said "keds" was Gaelic. I don't know if it was Welsh or Scottish shepherds who used the term.
I found an article about how the name Keds was chosen:
SHEEP AND GOATS—GENERAL
Sheep and goats are hosts to several important arthropod
pests. Failure to control these pests may result in
loss of wool, reduced weight gains, reduced milk production,
and even death in young lambs. An understanding
of the life history and habits of these pests is
essential for effective control.
The most common and abundant external parasite
of sheep is the sheep ked or sheep tick. Other pests
of concern include lice, scab mites, sheep nose bot flies,
fleece worms, stable flies, and house flies.
How the name was chosen:
They wanted to call the shoe they were about to produce a Ped, but another company was already using that term. After three years of vigorous thought, they narrowed the choice of a name down to two — Ved or Ked. It boggles the mind, doesn't it? They ultimately decided on Ked because (again as the legend goes) they felt K was the strongest letter in the alphabet. So Keds were born. The rest, as the books love to say, is history.
I had suspected an employee with warped sense of humor had
chosen it.