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#142491 04/26/05 11:22 PM
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-273.15°C says:
what is the word for words that make you do waht they mean?
-273.15°C says:
eg. guffaw
-273.15°C says:
i just crack up every time i hear it

I couldn't think of one off the top of my head. Can you lot help?

Evangelise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KEO!

#142492 04/27/05 05:50 PM
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I am reminded of Mel Brooks' "Two Thousand-Year-Old Man" interviews he did with Carl Reiner. Reiner asked the two thousand-year-old man how some words came to be, and he answered with the story of the word "egg." He said if you get reeeeeeeally close to a chicken when she is laying, and if you listen verrrrrrry closely, you can hear her straining to accomplish her task, and the sound she makes is, "Eh----ehh-----ehhh------ehhhhhhhg!"


#142493 04/27/05 06:59 PM
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...which is, of course, how the Ooh Aah Bird got its name. The Ooh Aah Bird lays cubic eggs and those squared corners pass uneasily through the vent. Thus the bird was named for the sound it makes as it first struggles to lay one and then completes the attempt: Oooooooooooooooh. Aah.




#142494 05/01/05 05:05 PM
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Where does this expression come from?


#142495 05/01/05 05:18 PM
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The Bible. The Book of Job -- "My bone cleaveth to my skin, and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth."


#142496 05/02/05 12:43 AM
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The Authorized Version (AV) which is also known as the King James Version (KJV) has it: "My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth."

Some commentators think that the reference is to an illness which has caused the lamenter's teeth to fall out, such that he has left only his gums (which are a sort of skin to the teeth).

The New International Version (NIV) cheats (or at least hedges its bet) by offering "I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth" and then suggesting "with only my gums" as an alternative reading of the last half of the verse.

More likely the expression is colloquial in Hebrew, literally translated into English, where it became a literary reference and eventually colloquial, as well.

The Message, which is not a translation at all, but rather a paraphrase, suggests: "I'm nothing but a bag of bones; my life hangs by a thread."

Rather than translate the words literally, Peterson probably does the best job rendering the sense of the phrase in The Message.








#142497 05/02/05 10:21 AM
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My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh

Something funny going on here. I would take the flesh to be the meat, the part between the skin and the bones, and, to include it in this list is but to state the normal condition. Unless, that is, it's the other cleave we're talking here, in which case, shouldn't it be My bone cleaveth from my skin and from my flesh?

Edit: Man, ya proof and ya proof and then ya end up saying flesh when ya mean bones. I corrected it.

#142498 05/02/05 01:19 PM
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I think that would be it. After all, if you're nothing but skin and bones, your skin (and what flesh you might have) would be sticking close to your bones. Another of the wonders of the English language, eh? Father Steve, do ya know the original Hebrew? The distinction is probably there.


#142499 05/02/05 02:53 PM
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> original Hebrew? The distinction is probably there

yeah right - in a language that suffers from vowel disorder! ;)


#142500 05/03/05 04:57 AM
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"Escaped with the skin of my teeth" is a literal translation of the Hebrew. But its meaning is a pun on a very similar sounding phrase meaning "with great difficulty or barely." The Ancient Jews loved their puns and turned them into figures of speech.



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