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#121473 01/28/04 02:14 PM
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In case you've missed it, there is a fascinating discussion going on in Weekly Themes about fences and walls.

Out of that discussion, I came across a term 'crinkle-crankle walls,' which turned out to be the predecessors of Jefferson's serpentine walls. MW defined crinkle-crankle this way:

"Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: crinkle + crankle
: a winding in and out : SINUOSITY, ZIGZAG "

And that made me wonder about local terms for, well, sinuosity, which is such a luscious term in its own right.

We've got serpentine, crinkle-crankle [Do you really use this term somewhere in Great Britain?], zigzag, sawtoothed-edge and the luscious sinuosity. I would think wavering might be related.

What other terms might describe a line that is moving back and forth, either in curves or zigzags? And when might the term be practically applied, as in the serpentine or crinkle-crankle wall or zigzag-edged pinking shears?


#121474 01/28/04 02:28 PM
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corregated, cordaroy
whoops, make that corrugated and corduroy
(thanks,WW! and least i know my post are read, (so i am not ending up as chopped liver!)


#121475 01/28/04 03:55 PM
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They were big men, these MacDonalds, full of music, Gaelic poetry, and the lore of the Highlands. Their swords, great claymores that had to be held with two hands, had flashed at Inverlochy, Killiecrankie, Sheriffmuir, Prestonpans and Culloden, and their pipes had played laments every time a Keppoch chief died.



#121476 01/28/04 04:19 PM
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crinkle-crankle [Do you really use this term somewhere in Great Britain?], ~ WW

Well, can't say I've ever heard it. I'd be more inclined to associate it with a noise than something visual.


#121477 01/28/04 10:25 PM
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wavy


#121478 01/29/04 02:27 AM
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meandering one of my favorite words


#121479 01/30/04 05:44 PM
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flexuous, tortuous, wiggly


#121480 01/30/04 06:03 PM
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Well, I finally got around to looking into this word, and what should I find in Partridge's Dictionary of Slang but crinkum-crankum quaintly glossed as: "The pudendum muliebre: ca. 1780-1870. Grosse, 3rd ed. Ex the S.E. sense (cf. crinkle-crankle), a winding way. Cf. crinkums, q.v. —2. In pl. (crinkum-crankums), tortuous handwriting.: colloq. (-1887)." And under crinkums "A venereal disease."


#121481 01/30/04 06:18 PM
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Crinkums - little curlycue spirochaetes - Treponema pallidum


#121482 01/31/04 07:55 AM
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The definition of crinkums-crankums brings to mind a 17th century poem about the dangers of illicit conubiality in which the term was indeed used to warn young men of the problems non-licit nooky can cause.


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