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Carpal Tunnel
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Mencken gives a short list of WWI UK word innovations, and mentions "strafe" as one of them.
"Nor have they the fine American hand for devising new verbs; to maffick, to limehouse, to strafe and to wangle are their best specimens in twenty years, and all have an almost pathetic flatness. "
He seems to think the British origated it. Hardly, it is
a German word meaning basically "to punish". It was used
particularly to refer to a German warplane at low altitude shooting machine guns into a long straight section of
trenches. In both wars "Strafe" was also used in propaganda
such as "Gott strafe England" = (roughly) "May God punish England".
You may not remember "maffick" = noisy celebration, such as first celebration of a victory at Mafeking, in Boer War, in 1900.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Actually, I did amazingly remember 'mafficking' [unusual for me since my history studies have been very, very bad]--but not the use of 'strafe'--or those planes flying at low altitudes to fire.
What is 'to limehouse'?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Limehouse, v.
[Limehouse, a district in the east of London.]
intr. To make fiery (political) speeches such as Mr. Lloyd George made at Limehouse in 1909. Also as n. and "Limehousing vbl. n.
1913 Daily Mail 1 Aug. 5 (heading) Mr. Lloyd George himself again.+ Limehousing at Carnarvon. 1914 National Rev. June 543 Mr. Lloyd George went to Ipswich and Limehoused on the eve of the poll. 1920 Glasgow Herald 20 Mar. 7 It is exactly what he used to say in the old Limehouse days, though his Limehousing now is of a different kind. 1920 Punch 31 Mar. 259/1 Guerrilla tactics in the House, suspension, recognition, pacifism, office, original budgeting, limehousing+, social reform. 1932 Times Lit. Suppl. 9 June 426/2 He [sc. Bonar Law] introduced+a ‘new acerbity’ into Front Bench debating, or what his opponents might have called the Conservative counterpart of ‘Limehouse’. 1937 Partridge Dict. Slang 484/1 Limehouse, ‘to use coarse, abusive language in a speech’. 1963 Punch 16 Jan. 96/1 Enough of the actor to wallow in invective—‘Limehousing’ they called it.
OED2
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Carpal Tunnel
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Somehow fitting term, then, isn't it, mav'? I would think a limehouse itself would be a sort of hothouse, temperaturewise.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, it certainly got its name from a hot trade, and became a byword for a hot-house of another sort… Limehouse gets its name from the lime oasts or kilns which existed in the area from at least the 14th century and processed the supplies of chalk brought from Kent. It owes its importance however to the links with the sea and growth of London as a commercial centre. In Elizabethan times many famous seaman lived in Limehouse including Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the explorer, and William Borough and Sir Henry Palmer, both Controllers of the Navy. In the early 17th century about half the population of over 2,000 were mariners and a hundred years later when the population had increased to 7,000 Limehouse was considered to be the easternmost part of London. By the 19th century the growth in housing and population and the diminishing importance of the riverside had caused the independent maritime character of Limehouse to disappear. A colony of between 300 and 400 Chinese settled around Pennyfields and Limehouse Causeway about 1890. They were originally seamen from the Blue Funnel Line and the activities of a few opium dealers and gamblers brought some notoriety to the area, although it was much exaggerated.http://www.eolfhs.org.uk/parish/limehouse.htm
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Very interesting, mav'. Now to find out what a pennyfield might be. The only other field I associate with money is, of course, Iscariot's.
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