you know what i mean.. the word for the re-enforced tip of a shoelace.. the name of the small valley -between the upper lip and nostrils..the term for the fold in the skin of the upper eyelid, common in people from asia..

you know the sort..

like chalaza--the technical term for the rope like membrane you find in realy fresh eggs.. that keeps the yolk centered.. (you've all seen that rope like membrane.. have you every thought about what is was called?)

supple the correct words for the first few suggestions. add more..

we all have favorite little words, words that detail our lives..

aglet... philtrum... epicanthus

too easy; next?

and your favorite-(is it one of those, or some other odd little word?) goodness knows, there are enough odd little words..

it wasn't a game.. and since aglet, philtrum, epicanthus have all been discussed.. to post them is a sort of yart.. is this it? we've exhausted the list of odd little words in english? at a count of 4?

no one has any?

You trying to ruin every future game of HogWash®?

Well, of troy, here are some everyday words for everyday things we might take for granted. Not exactly what you had in mind for unusual-sounding words, but these are fun to think about, too:

I like the name for the individual plates on a turtle's shell--and their various names depending upon where they're located on the carapace, which I also like--but I know you all already know that one fersure.

There are two t-words for the parts of the umbrella at the outmost stretching points: one that fits over the other one that the secures the stretch, both beginning with a 't'.

Parts of the hammer head? Human/animal names: the top, the lateral side, the flat front that hits what's being hammered, and the back part that looks like a double metal pony tail. Each of these has the name of a feature of an animal--most mammals would qualify.

I just had my bike tuned up, and the awesome and ever informative BikeMobile guy told me that the little thingies covering the connections of the spokes onto the rim are called nipples. My question: what are they called in German? Same as live nipples (which translate as breast warts)? Maybe wsieber knows.

Holy smokes! Am I ever lazy, and not too observant. I was sitting here quite comfortably with my feet propped up on a book on top of my desk. It's my German-English dictionary!!!! So I looked it up, and I'm guessing the answer is Nippel, which isn't quite as exciting as Brustwarze.

...which isn't quite as exciting as Brustwarze.

Not to burst any bubbles here, but, nothing should be *as exciting as calling them "breast warts". Nothing.

To a plumber, a nipple is a piece of pipe, relatively short, with male threads on both ends.
And I just happened to wonder--why is a plumber called that?
I know about plumb bobs and plumb lines to make things plumb
square--but those aren't solely related to water pipes, in and out.

I think that plumber may relate to the lead with which they used to work, back in the mad old days when plumbers worked with lead pipes.

"... and, behold, the LORD stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the LORD, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more." Amos 7:7-8 Authorized Version.

ah, that's what was meant by, "Let my people go."
always wondered...

Lead would be my guess too, and in case the etymology is still not frightfully clear - Latin (and 'scientific') for Lead is plumbum - hence it's abbreviation Pb on the Periodic Table (oh glorious Mendeleev, thou shouldst have been living now...)

And, oh yes, to Helen - some of my favourite words aren't necessarily for small, often forgotten things, but include rather large things. I'm speaking of the names we give certain groups of animals (and possibly plants, but I'm no botanist). Some current favourites include cetaceans and pinnipeds, and since tortoise shells were mentioned, chelonians. And then (as a sort of neat segue) the remarkable set of animal-alike adjectives - equine, porcine, vulpine, aquiline, lupine and so on. Bovine above all, of course...

> Bovine above all, of course...

You can lose that b in these here parts.

lose that b

Ah!

Oh, shanks, for you, one of my favorite lines, (reserved for very special people..

i love you, i love you, i love you..
i'll love you till the cows come home.

























and then, i'll go back to loving the cows!

Thanks to Max and Shanks for leading me in the right direction. And PopS, all right! I'd forgotten that Amos was a plumbing prophet!
Is there a word for puns like that elementary one I just used(sorry), that work in print but not in speech?

Helen

i'll love you till the cows come home

Thanks for that. Of course, we could start from here, work our way through Gray's 'Elegy', meditate about unknown Caesar's and then... and then...

"The tractor homeward chugs its smoky way,
And the farmer to his supper and TV."

And leaves the world to CO and to me?

WW, I knew that the front of a hammer is a face, the "pony tails" you describe are nail-puller claws, and the top?
Don't know, that's where you see the eye, though, that the
handle goes through. Looking for those other words I was surprised to find that the face is on the nose instead of vice-versa, and the sides of the head are, more logically,
cheeks.

Well, naturally, these weren't my terms but terms from a pictorial dictionary I bought years back. I thought the term 'cheeks' was very sweet for the sides, and the eye for the top--can't imagine why--and, yes, the claw for what looks like a stiff, double ponytail to me, and the face at the front. Carpenter who named that eye must have had one too many.

Also interesting: the mallet has two 'heads' rather than two 'faces.'

And the ball peen has a 'peen' and a 'face'--but I don't know what a 'peen' is outside of a ball peen hammer.

These kinds of facts come into play when reading period mysteries, don't they.

and the eye for the top--can't imagine why

I suspect it looked more like an eye on an old-fashioned hammer, when there would often be a metal spike nailed into the top of the wooden handle to help it spread and grip the metal head. Think of the head of the spike as the pupil/iris and the wood as the sclera (another great little word) of the eye.

I wish someone could find an illustration of this spiked hammer of which Flatlander writes...

I wooda called it a wedge rather than spike. must be a pic somewhere...

More than you wanted to know about hammer eyes

http://www.artmetal.com/project/News/UMBA/Knight.html

Here's a quote from the page you posted [Thanks, Faldage]:

For Pete's sake, your a blacksmith, make some wedges!

Would you like to know how many times I've read that spelling error this year?

These are odd to me: mashie, niblick.

They're odd to me too, and to just about anybody, I suspect. Along with 'spoon', and a few others, I genuinely believe they only survive in Wodehouse and relics of the names that golfers gave their clubs. Today, of course, they're all numbered!

cheer

the sunshine warrior

yeah, mostly gone to woods and irons now, sadly..

>I genuinely believe they only survive in Wodehouse and relics of the names that golfers gave their clubs. Today, of course, they're all numbered!

In my Wodehouse phase, I read a foreword to one of his books in which he decried the change to numbered woods and irons, and defended the more colourful names that he continued to use up to the end.

"I believe one still drives with a driver nowadays, though at any moment we may have to start calling it the Number One wood. But where is the mashie now, where the cleek, the spoon and the baffy?"

~P.G. Wodehouse

Oh my gosh, I want the name of the book please. Hubby and his golfing buddy (they're like the Bobsy twins joined at the hip) always roll their eyes when I use a different name for anything having to do with golf.

Apprently, you don't get caught in a sandpit but a sandtrap, and the big ole grass on the sides is rough, not grunge. Also, yodeling while climbing up a hill using your five-iron as a cane is strictly prohibited.

I'd love to get those names. Then I'd be using REAL names and they couldn't roll their eyes. I mean really, how boring is it to say, "I'll use my driver" when you could say "Gimme my mashie, I'll whack that outta here."

yodeling while climbing up a hill using your five-iron as a cane is strictly prohibited. Dang, bel, don't they ever let you have any fun?

shoelace tip -- ferrule

dave, you'd use ferule? aglet is the more common answer--tsuwm provided it early on.. (but since it wasn't really a question, but rather an invitation to submit words..)

i think of a ferule as the small piece of metal all along the top edge of a ruler--the thing that lets you run a pencil along the smooth sharp edge to get a straight line..

the OUD(oxford universal) says a ferule can mean beat with a stick, or the stick you are beating with!, (ie, a rod, a cane or other instrument of punishment, esp. a flat ruler)--(but doesn't single out the metal edge of ruler, so...)

all from a word for a giant fennel!

aglet is a diminutive from aiguille--which is a term for a pointy peak (mountain) particularlly one of the alps..

and aglet is a metal tag or point of lace, --hence any small tag, pendant or spangle, worn as an ornament on clothing.. (eventually, the decorated tips of lace stays on woman dresses..)

i suppose newer dictionaries might have more.. (the OUD is from 1955.)-- and goodness knows, if i had a penny for every time i was wrong, i'd be rich!

A ferrule is also the small metal cap on either end of a fuse.

A ferule is also a ring, usually metal, that slips over the end of a tube and "bunches up" inside a connector or other fitting to ensure a firm and lasting application.

you got yourselves two distinct words with unique spellings there folks!

ferrule \fer-ul\ noun [alter. of ME virole, fr. MF, fr. L viriola, dim. of viria bracelet, of Celtic origin; akin to OIr fiar oblique] (1611)
1 : a ring or cap usu. of metal put around a slender shaft (as a cane or a tool handle) to strengthen it or prevent splitting
2 : a usu. metal sleeve used esp. for joining or binding one part to another (as pipe sections or the bristles and handle of a brush)
ferruled adjective

ferule \fer-ul\ also ferula \fer-(y)e-le\ noun [L ferula giant fennel, ferule] (1580)
1 : an instrument (as a flat piece of wood like a ruler) used to punish children
2 : school discipline


(C) 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

I gotta ask, Helen, because less than 24 hours before you started this thread, I used aglet in a very clever pun:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=130842. was this a coincidence, or were you inspired?

very clever pun

Nag, n'ag -- let him alone, will ya?

Thank you very much, tsuwm; I was so puzzled, reading Dave's post: I knew that what I was thinking of couldn't possibly be the end of a shoelace (my knowledge of the word coming from having read about a child in school being hit with a ferule). I hadn't known there were two different words. I wonder if ferrule \fer-ul\ noun [alter. of ME virole, fr. MF, fr. L viriola, dim. of viria bracelet, of Celtic origin; akin to OIr fiar oblique] is related to iron? That is, it strikes me (no, not with a hot iron, golf or other type!) that the first ones of these securing bands or even bracelets might have been made of iron.

no, etaoin, it wasn't n'aglet--it was fresh eggs!

and dr bill pointed out in a PM, that realy fresh eggs, when hardboiled, show the concentric rings of the ablumin that was layed down.. (but the chelaza disappears as the egg is cooked..)

--------------------------------
that's tsuwm, for the info on ferrule/ferule..
given that, a tip of shoe lace could be bound with a ferrule or an aglet..

I knew the word ferrule from pool cues, where they are used to strengthen the tips. hi musick!
http://www.netpath.net/heads/faq/cueparts.html

I don't think I'd use it to refer to an aglet though.

I think the link's between ferrule and aglet, through their similar use as "a metal ring or cap placed around a pole or shaft for reinforcement or to prevent splitting" (definition for ferrule) and "a tag or sheath, as of plastic, on the end of a lace, cord, or ribbon to facilitate its passing through eyelet holes" (aglet). The only difference seems to be in the material and the exact function, but the idea's roughly the same.

Ooh, tswum--filet and fillet and now ferule and ferrule!
Will I ever get them right?
Especially when the confused spellcheck told me the word I wanted was "fervent"!!

So is that metal edge on a ruler a ferrule on a ferule?

Almost enough to make me go feral!

all for one and one feral...

I kinda like this one; it's cute. There are three in the previous sentence.

Anna, and must tell you that I liked his title. So ppphhhbbbtttt! Good one!

jot and tittle to me are like sugar and cream, salt and pepper. i always think of the two paired.

(and i'll leave it to Fr Steve or other to cite chapter and verse!)

three in the previous sentence

Which one doesn't count?

oops... Four. I suffer from dyscalculia.

jot and tittle to me are like sugar and cream, salt and pepper. i always think of the two paired. This is one I'm not familiar with. Is a jot what the cross of a t is called? (As in "dot your i's and cross your t's".) Or does the phrase refer to something else altogether?

Are jot and iota related?

Are jot and iota related?

Yes, both via Latin from Greek from the Hebrew letter name yodh 'hand'.

Jot or tittle is an idiom which means any small thing. Curiously, it is close in origin to the idiom which commands attention to every small detail: dot the is and cross the ts. (That is one place where the urge to use an inappropriate apostrophe is almost irresistible). Jot is a variant of iota, the Greek name for the letter i. Iota is still used alone to mean something small, generally by negation: there is not one iota of evidence …; in exactly the same way it might be said there is not a jot of evidence … The meanings are identical.

The ambivalence between jot and iota is not surprising: until early in the nineteenth century, i and j were facets of the same letter. In the first edition of Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), the entry next after hystericks is I, and it contains a discussion of that letter, followed by its meaning as the first person singular pronoun. The next entry is jabber, followed by other words beginning ja-. After jazel comes ice; after idyl comes jealous, and so on. So it remained in all the editions in Johnson’s lifetime. However the 8th edition, edited by Dr Todd (1818) recognizes that i and j have ceased to be facets of the same thing, and have separated into 2 different letters. Iota and jot are small reminders of the way it was.

So a jot is simply the letter i.[e.a.] A tittle is any diacritic mark in text, such as an accent, a cedilla or a tilde. Nowadays, it refers specifically to the dot above the letter i. So reference to every jot and tittle is a reminder of the importance of dotting the i.
-Julian Burnside

[my reading: jot and tittle is a pleonasm]

Well, Mr. B. may be correct in saying that Nowadays, it refers specifically to the dot above the letter i. However, none of the listings in Onelook say anything about that. The ones that have the diacritic def. all simply say cedilla, dot, etc. This makes me think of comparing tittle to whiskey and bourbon: all bourbons are whiskies but not all whiskies are bourbons. The dictionaries seem to say that tittle is whiskey. But acc'g. to Mr. Burnside it's a bourbon! (Yeah, well, I haven't been awake very long.)

As to those "inappropriate apostrophes": all I can say is that I still think that i's gets the meaning across quicker than is does. [defiant head toss e]

Now: y'all take a look at a couple of things I found at Onelook: 1.) Go to
http://poets.notredame.ac.jp/cgi-bin/wn?cmd=wn&word=tittle and take a gander at the section called "Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun tittle". I've never seen any other place that includes a list like that.

2.) Surprise!
Date: Mon Jan 3 00:19:30 EST 2000
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--tittle
X-Bonus: The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind. -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

tittle (TIT-l) noun

1. A small diacritic mark, such as an accent, a vowel mark, or a dot
over an i.

2. The tiniest bit; an iota.

[Middle English titil, from Medieval Latin titulus, diacritical mark,
from Latin, title, superscription.]

"Reporters and editors crave detail, down to the dot and tittle, and
assume as much about the reader, listener or viewer."
Deborah Mathis, Clinton: The Arkansas view, USA Today, 17 Jan 1994.

Ever wondered if there is a word for that dot over the letter i, or what to
call that fleshy fold of skin hanging from the throat of a rooster? Ever spent
a weekend trying to find out what to call those vertical grooves on the side
of a coin, or if there is a term for the big toe? Relax, help is at hand. This
week's AWAD answers these and a few other questions that may be keeping you up
at night. (-: -Anu
http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives/0100