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#141369 03/28/05 06:58 PM
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stranger
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I know there were coal-oil miner's lamps, since I've got one on my mantle (complete with cotton wick). The carbide lamps came later, followed by the electric ones, of course. the coal-oil lamps go back to the era of mine-mules, which my grandfather used to shoe.

George F. Feissner
Math. Dept.
SUNY College at Cortland
Cortland, NY 13045


George F. Feissner
Math. Dept.
SUNY College at Cortland
Cortland, NY 13045
#141370 03/28/05 07:30 PM
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NO explanations of how they came about, just citations to a place where they appear in print. That, to me, is the second drawback to the dictionary, the first of course being it's incompleteness.

To George:

OK. That goes back further than I knew about. Thaks for setting me straight.

TEd



TEd
#141371 03/29/05 08:04 PM
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I always found the French expression, "leche la fenetre" (lick the window or what I would call window shopping) odd until I went to France and found that stores don't often have windows advertising goods for sale but bakeries do!

(How's my spelling bel??)

#141372 03/31/05 01:54 AM
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Pretty good Zed. You're only missing a couple of accents - but I know very few folks have access to a French keyboard outside of Québec, so I know you knew that the accents had to go there but just couldn't put them in because of hardware limitations, eh.

Lèche la fenêtre (lick the window)
Lécher la fenêtre (licking the window)

I've never heard it put quite that way though. I've heard it as "faire du lèche fenêtre" (do some window-licking)


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addict
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Bel, I was taught 'faire la lèche-vitrine' rather than using fenêtre.

Can you shed any light on whether this is a difference between French French and Quebecois French, or a sign of my age or something else entirely?

..and now I am thinking of all those words in French for 'window', because I am pretty sure we were also taught 'glace' for car windows. I understand that 'vitrine' tend to be oversize windows - retail premises rather than houses. What do you use for an office window?


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dxb Offline
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And then there’s this:

lech·er: NOUN: A man given to lechery. ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old French lecheor, from lechier, to lick, to live in debauchery, of Germanic origin.

Copied from AHD


#141375 04/13/05 08:00 AM
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And how did one stumble across this, Dixbie?


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Simple:

Just lecher fingers do the walking.



TEd
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HA HA HA!!!!! That was great!


#141378 04/13/05 03:27 PM
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And how did one stumble across this, Dixbie?

Umm. It just struck one as probable and so one went alookin'!

TEd, that was to a high standard of lecherdermain .


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