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#146587 08/22/05 03:00 PM
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Two different words, with two different histories: one from chewing to bits and the other from mangonel a machine of war.



Ceci n'est pas un seing.
#146588 08/22/05 10:11 PM
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Well, I'm certainly learning a lot of stuff today. I didn't know garderobe was used in English and German.

It's pretty self explanatory in French with garde meaning "keep" and robe meaning "dress." So it is a place to keep dresses - a closet. It is pretty much the only term we use for a closet in Québec. Well, apart from saying the word closet with a French accent, which the language police abosolutely hate.


#146589 08/22/05 11:05 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Around here a wardrobe is a separate piece of furniture while a closet is part of the house and a clothes press is a word in a historical novel.

edit well, two words if you want accuracy

#146590 08/23/05 10:20 AM
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I've only ever heard/seen garderobe in historical contexts to describe the sanitary facilities or lack thereof in mediaevel castles. IIRC garderobe is said to have started off as gardez robe, i.e., mind your clothes while using the facilities (usually just a hole in the floor of a small room built into the castle wall over the moat). As time went by, this small room developed other uses, mainly as a place to keep clothes, and then into the item of furniture used today. With the passing of time the word also settled down in the modern form of wardrobe.

Bingley


Bingley
#146591 08/23/05 02:02 PM
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#146592 08/25/05 07:44 PM
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referred to what we now know as a "closet" as a "clothes press." I have no idea why? Has anyone else come across this usage?

In my high school days I was a boarder (live-in student) at a Catholic school. (Girls only.) The rooms did not have closets. The closets for each room was the door next to the room door and accessible from the hall. They were called the clothes press.
In a similar vein - when I visited Ireland I was introduced to the "airing cupboard" which was a clothes press with heat in it to take the chill off clothes that were brought in from hanging to dry outside. Neat idea!



#146593 08/25/05 10:27 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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this small room developed other uses, mainly as a place to keep clothes

Good heavens! as if the era wasn't aromatic enough without storing your clothes in the biffy.


#146594 08/26/05 12:28 AM
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> biffy

man! I haven't heard that for years!!



formerly known as etaoin...
#146595 08/26/05 12:49 AM
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for years

For years? I ain' never heard it.


#146596 08/26/05 02:37 AM
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heh. well, that's what we allus called it when I was growin' up. I think my Mom still uses the term.

edit: ah ha! Bartleby says:

biffy

SYLLABICATION: bif·fy
VARIANT FORMS: also biff
NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. bif·fies also biffs
Upper Midwest 1. An outdoor toilet; an outhouse. 2. An indoor toilet.
ETYMOLOGY: Perhaps alteration of privy.


(bold emphasis mine)


formerly known as etaoin...
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