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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
"What happens in very many cases is that a custom arises from a humdrum and everyday usage or practice. As times change and there is no longer a practical reason for keeping it up, there is the usual human reaction to go on doing the same thing, so people tend, consciously or unconsciously, to find a justification to keep on doing the same thing the same way."
Which reminds me of the story ...
Of the new bride who was excited to host Easter dinner for her new family, and planned to cook a ham according to the tradition of her own family. Using her mother's recipe, the woman cut the ham in two and simultaneously baked them in separate pans. However, when her husband asked her why the ham was in two pieces, the bride said, "I don't know. It's the way my mom always did it." So, the bride called her mother, who said, "I don't know. That's the way my mother always did it." So then the mother called her mother and asked why she baked the ham in two pieces. And grandmother said, "Because I didn't have a single pan big enough."
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
"Right up until mid C19, the majority opinion among the medical profession was that whatever it was that carried disease was actually in the smell itself. This is known as 'the miasmic theory of disease.'"
Hence, the name, "malaria."
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
" aloof! An old expression meaning 'Keep your luff', or sail as close to the wind as possible. Sometimes, in old books of voyages, written as 'ALUFFE'. The expression was most often used when a ship was sailing along a lee shore, the order to 'keep aloof' meaning to keep the ship's head nearer to the wind to prevent her being driven closer to the shore. "
Any etymology experts among us able to tell how this nautical term changed to mean
"distant in sympathy, interest, etc.; reserved and cool !her manner was aloof"
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
adv. 1. [naut] sail nearer the wind 2. [naut] away to the windward 3. hence generally, of position: away at some distance 4. of action: from a distance, not at close quarters 5. fig. without community of action or feeling 6. as compl. or pred.: at a distance; distant; hence, detached, unsympathetic hence attrib. as adj. distant (obs. rare), also, detached, unsympathetic QED 
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
The small room or closet adjoining the kitchen that is ordinarily called the pantry, was called by my father "the buttry". I just found origin of this word in Melanie and Mike:
Butt "barrel" comes from a different source than all of the above: Latin buttis "cask". Bottle is related. A storeroom of casks of wine was called a buterie, and that is where the U.K. English term buttery "food shop in a college" comes from. So if you get thee to a buttery, it does not have to be a fattening experience.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Latin buttis "cask". Bottle is related. A storeroom of casks of wine was called a buterie, and that is where the U.K. English term buttery "food shop in a college" comes from
Cool, Bill! Yup, the French word for bottle is
bouteille: all this is now clearly related. Thanks.
And, re: aloof--I reckon aluffe meant that the ship is
standing off (from the shore), and so aloof for people means
they're stand-offish.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
Cool, Bill! Yup, the French word for bottle is
bouteille: all this is now clearly related. Thanks.
All this talk of bottles reminds me of the fiasco that brought me here in the first place - what goes around comes around, plus ça change, etc.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
All this talk of bottles reminds me of the fiasco that brought me here in the first place - what goes around comes around, plus ça change, etc. You mean you played Spin the Bottle?!? 
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
You mean you played Spin the Bottle?!?Search for fiasco and all will be revealed (which may well happen in Spin The Bottle as well) 
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Wasn't Amontillado el Fiasco a character in Asterix in Spain?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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