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#144701 07/01/05 09:36 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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brake shoes are one sort of mechanical shoe--there are others. (and things other than shoes can need grease.)

late in life (mid thirties) i was enlighted--all the mechanical part names i knew for sewing machines were not specific to sewing machines.. Cams in sewing machines fuctioned just like 'overhead cams' in car engines. (and sewing machine cams were most often 'over head too!)

feed dogs.. ditto.
and drive belts in card feeders were changed and tensions almost identically to drive belts on sewing machined (and not to differently than fan drive belts.)--and most other motor/belt driven mechanism.

and cars (not that i really know much about cars. butth parts: clutches, brakes, bearing; generic, generic, generic!

I loved mechanics!
as a child, i used to annoy my mother and entertain myself by lying under her sewing machine (as she was sewing) to watch the drive (and gears, and ...) by the time i was 12 or so, i knew enough about the machine to help fix it when it jammed.


#144702 07/01/05 11:32 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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A combine (the machine used to harvest and thresh wheat) has a shoe -- it is the part where the sieves separate the grain from the chaff.

The shoe is the device from which cards are dealt in card games such as Chemin De Fer. [I learned this by reading James Bond novels as a youngster.]

The shoe on my wife's several cameras is that part by which certain accessories (e.g. a remote flash unit) are attached.

The part of an electric train which contacts an electrified track and draws power therefrom is the train's shoe.

The big solid foundation to which the superstructure of a bridge is attached is its shoe.

There are probably others.


#144703 07/01/05 11:44 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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that's a really big shoe!



formerly known as etaoin...
#144704 07/02/05 12:05 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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John Leonard, A Really Big Show, New York: Viking Studio Books, 1992.



#144705 07/02/05 12:16 AM
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There are probably others.

True. There is the Shoe Inn where the old lady moved when she outgrew her Size 8.

Which begs the question, where did the expression "shoe in" come from?
Turns out it's "shoo in", not "shoe in".

Apparently, it was a horseracing term. Corrupt jockeys would hold back their own mounts in favor of the one on which they had all bet.

"The shoo-in is the only horse in the race that is trying to win."

http://snipurl.com/fz4x


#144706 07/02/05 12:29 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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There is the Shoe Inn where the old lady moved when she outgrew her Size 8.

Not to mention the Horseshoe Road Inn, where guests on Car Talk stay.


#144707 07/03/05 01:19 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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there are probably others

pate a choux


*snerk*


#144708 07/03/05 01:56 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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snerk (v.)
v. 1. To emit a brief sound in the intention of snickering, only to have it come out come out sounding more like a snort. 2. To act like a know-it-all. Example usage: When you brag "I know something you don't know", you're said in some communities to be snerking. n. A half smile, half smirk.
http://www.langmaker.com/db/eng_snerk.htm



#144709 07/03/05 04:03 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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> *snerk*

What a useful expression! Thanks, Spartakiss :)


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