i've never gotten the brass ring! i have been on several carousels that offered a ring--but never got the brass ring.

--many carousels had a post, off to the side, and high up, that had a box that dispenced rings, (about the size of a key ring--) when your horse was high, if you stood in the stirups, you might be able to reach the rings-- most were just steel, or tin or something, but once in a while you could reach out and get a brass ring! a brass ring could be turned in for a free ride!

it took skill and daring just to reach for a ring-- and then most of time, you got nothing for your effort. but to get the brass ring, it to take a risk, and win! joy!

but carousel horse where just carousel horses-- or lions or some other animals. but horses where the best.

(actually what i like best for many years was watching the gearing-- i love watching machines work!)

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One of the great attractions of carousels was their mechanical steam organ

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If you knew of a carousel or merry-go-round with a steam organ, it would have been most unusual.
A steam organ is called a calliope, usually used by circuses and occupying its own wagon. It would lnot have been used for a carousel because of the danger of explosion with a lot of children close by. What was used for a carousel was a mechanical pneumatic organ, an instrument with a very distinguised pedigree -- Mozart composed at least one piece for mechanical organ.

of troy has given you the literal explanation of the phrase; figuratively it has come to mean success through grasping an opportunity (carpe curvus!).

Oh DRAT. I thought it said carousAl

No help on this end Wow. I have always known them by the French term of cheval de bois (wooden horse). We do use the term carousel in French to discribe a merry-go-round.

Isn't that round thing you find in kiddy parks also a merry-go-round. You know, that large round piece of wood with horizontal push-handles that the kids grab then proceed to run like the dickens. When a good momentum is reached everybody jumps on (except the little kids of course who nearly all get ground up underneath the thing).

Right on, Bob! Never did have a mechanical mind -- just enjoyed the music, however it was produced.

Never did have a mechanical mind

"Don't do that, Paul..."
"Don't do that, Paul..."
(repeat until the New Year )

>run like the dickens

I know the expression, but I never met Charlie himself. Was he an athlete? Anyone know where the Dickens the saying came from?

Marty asked: I know the expression, but I never met Charlie himself. Was he an athlete? Anyone know where the Dickens the saying came from?

Nope, but given the nature of the 19th Century and the known poverty in which scribblers such as ooour Charlie tended to live (picture here a threadbare garret, spilled inkhorns, screwed up balls of paper littering the floor, a mouse nibbling on his last crust, bent steel nibs impaled in the door), he probably learned to run from his creditors extremely efficiently.

The consequence of getting lumbered as a debtor in the 19th century was the debtors prison, as stupid an institution as British law has ever come up with ...

Of course, if you have seen "Shakespeare in Love" you will know from the opening scene that the consequences in earlier centuries could have been somewhat more, um, fiery.

This is all unqualified rubbish, of course ...

>>run like the dickens

Means run like the devil (was after you) I believe. From the era when you didn't say things like damn and devil in polite company, if I remember rightly.

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Means run like the devil (was after you) I believe. From the era when you didn't say things like damn and devil in polite company, if I remember rightly.

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Thanks for the parenthetical explanation, TEd of the strange pronunciation. Makes some sense out of it.

Speaking of euphemisms for swear words, my very prim and proper (<insert link to redundant pairs thread here>) mother-in-law says "belly" when she means "bloody".

Makes me belly laugh.

belly laugh

Ironic, isn't it, given that "bloody" was itself spawned as a euphemism to avoid the sacrilegious "by our lady"!

Mav -- reminds me of the joke about the harassed mother who says to an older child, "Go out and see what Billy's doing, and tell him he mustn't!"

Mav said: Ironic, isn't it, given that "bloody" was itself spawned as a euphemism to avoid the sacrilegious "by our lady"!

I find the early to mid seventeenth century a fascinating period. It by turn produced some of the most risque plays ever produced and yet imposed the most repressive religious conformity ever known in England under Cromwell. This was, of course, the reason for most of the euphemisms used then, several of which are still in use today. (Packrats again ...) Talk about contrasts!

I've always considered that the Renaissance never really hit England until the Restoration. That period had all the ingredients which had been present in Italy two centuries earlier. I assume everyone has read Pepy's diaries. They're so revealing it's almost like being there. And I'm not talking about the grubby bits.

Don't assume some such CapK. What are Pepy's diaries?

Wasn't the theater (or the actors at least) considered lower class. This may have to do with the fact that they could get away with saying things the general population could not.

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the theater considered lower class

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The reason you assign is maybe a little far out. More likely: a) the people who were in the theater did it for a living; doing anything for a living was low class -- gentlemen and ladies didn't have to earn a living. b) in the 16th to 18th centuries women connected to the theater were automatically assumed to be whores (and most actually were). The Cromwellian/Presbyterian parties abominated the theater generally, on the grounds that actors presented a falsity, that they might teach publicly something contrary to the Word of God, it was riddled with whores, etc., and probably on the grounds that someone might have a good time for a couple hours.

Bob said, and quite rightly: ... and probably on the grounds that someone might have a good time for a couple hours.

Yes under the Commonwealth pleasure was not for the lower classes. Even Ollie himself was a little ambivalent about the upper classes, since, on the surface their "fun" tended to be a little more outwardly decorous. I remember reading somewhere that he approved of one particular entertainment event on the grounds that it would do "no harm to the Godly". Arrogant prat, really!

And, yes, being an "actress" in that period generally meant prostitution as a means of making ends meet between gigs on stage.

Hypocrisy was alive and well in those days (and before them, I guess), and that appears to have remained the case ever since. Hark to the British Conservative governments of the 80s and 90s ...

carpe curvus?

Perhaps carpe curvum, but probably carpe anulum.

It's funny - this is my first day visiting this board, which is dedicated to exploring and playing with the English language, and it's got me mostly focusing on my Latin.

Hyla

Hi bel...since no one more literary-minded than I has come back to you, I thought I'd better explain it myself.

You asked Don't assume some such CapK. What are Pepy's diaries?

Well, I keep telling you I'm trained in economics, and therefore making silly assumptions is a requirement for me to stay in the club.

However, Samuel Pepys was one of those larger than life characters that you find littering the pages of history. I don't remember his dates, but he was aging during the latter part of the Commonweath (was that up to 1664? Can't remember exactly). He did okay under Noll Cromwell, but flourished under the Restoration because of rampant nepotism.

Rather than me boring you - and everyone else - with my take on things, this reference to Encarta will give you the nutshell:

http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=00398000

Happy reading.

prostitution as a means of making ends meet

Aaah! Oh! Uh--I think you have just ascended the throne of gutterdom. But all's well that ends well. Wish I had dared put parentheses around the s in my subject. Guess
I'm not up on all the tricks of the trade.

Jackie reposted: prostitution as a means of making ends meet

Aaah! Oh! Uh--I think you have just ascended the throne of gutterdom. But all's well that ends well. Wish I had dared put parentheses around the s in my subject. Guess
I'm not up on all the tricks of the trade.

Well, I'm glad it didn't pass entirely unnoticed. Although I thought it was pretty innocuous. Pepys was much more explicit. Known in those days as a "warm" man.