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#145146 - 07/17/05 11:30 AM getting dressed for ...
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 10/17/00
Posts: 5400
Loc: rego park
from the root of "to wear" it can be real clothing, (a vest)or a figurative 'clothing' (with the power vested in me..) or you can be vested (in a pension plan) which just means your are invested (but you also get invested with power!)
you divest, or invest, be vested, or wear a vest..
(but if you are invested with spiritual power, (ie, a preist or minister) you don't get devested, you get defrocked! (so you get vested, but your vest is a frock.)
and i am sure vest has other nuances.. (like vestment, and investment)_________________________
my other obsession
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#145147 - 07/17/05 11:37 AM
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/24/02
Posts: 7185
Loc: Vermont
formerly known as etaoin...
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#145148 - 07/17/05 11:54 AM
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 10/17/00
Posts: 5400
Loc: rego park
there are some (in a small green part of the world) that mangle and misprononce words so effectively, that poor american visitors to their land thought there was a new name for a waistcoat. and so WESKIT came into being..
WESKIT is how Waistcoat was commonly said.
its a sonic error.
(sonic errors abound--like:
Baited breath
taken for granite
hare's breath...
we could do a whole thread on sonic errors!)
Synjon is another (you know, its how you say the name, (not a very popular one i'll admit, but found in literature) St.John. (Jane Eyre has an important character named St.John.)_________________________
my other obsession
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#145149 - 07/17/05 12:34 PM
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 10/17/00
Posts: 5400
Loc: rego park
had an amusing experience the first time
I took ferry from Cape Tormentine to Borden on PEI.
There was a safety poster in French, about 'gilets de
sauvettage'. With my best high-school French, I asked
the purser who looked French:'Qu'est que c'est un gilet
de sauvettage?' He snarled at me:'I don't speak French!'
And shut his door before I could ask again in English.
As I walked away, I suddenly had vision of an illustration
in a French language version of Alice in Wonderland, with
the White Rabbit wearing a bright red weskit.
Suddenly it dawned on me: Weskit in French is 'gilet'.
So 'gilets de sauvettage' were life jackets.
so anyone--is the word gilet related to the PIE(that's proto indo european, not PEI(Prince Edward Island--reputed to be the prettiest place on earth) word for clothing (to wear clothing?)_________________________
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#145150 - 07/17/05 12:47 PM
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/24/02
Posts: 7185
Loc: Vermont
gilet
/jilay/
• noun (pl. gilets pronunc. same) a light sleeveless padded jacket.
— ORIGIN French, ‘waistcoat’, from Turkish.
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/gilet?view=uk_________________________
formerly known as etaoin...
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