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Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I coulda said You DID say she's a salt seller... 
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
That would be bath salts, right, cherie? Wouldn't they be more apt to clean things up? Ackshuly®(cheque's in the mail, Mav )salacious doesn't have anything to do etimologistically(huh?) with salt, so why is salacious language called "salty" language? Oh, I posted a word post! Calgon take me away!
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
"Yankee Doodle went to town
A'riding on a pony
Put a feather in his hat
And called it Macaroni"
It is my understanding that the "Macaroni" referred to in the song was to a group of fancy dressed fops who paraded around London town in the 1770s. The idea of the song was that the Colonists were so stupid they thought a single feather in their hats could entitle them to call themselves members of the "Macaroni" ... Also I understand the song was originally an English song started as a slur on the Colonists (the "Yankee Doddles") but was adopted by the Colonists as a compliment and the slur diffused by their laughing at themselves.
Or am I hopelessly misinformed? Anyone?
PS And what, pray tell, is a Doodle?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear wow: I forget where I saw it, but your analsysis of "Yankee Doodle" seems entirely correct. I don't remember the "Doddle" part, but suspect that "Doodle" just sounded better. Here is a URL to annoy CK: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr19.htmlYou have to scroll down a ways and click on underlined "Yankee Doodle".
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
From “A Paradise in Madrid" – Camilo Jose’Cela, The Hive
The waste plot that is the morning playground or noisy, quarrelsome boys who throw stones at each other all day long, is, from the time that front doors are locked, a rather grubby Garden of Eden where one cannot dance smoothly to the music of a concealed, almost unnoticed radio set; where one cannot smoke a scented, delightful cigarette as a prelude; where no easy, candid endearments may be whispered in security, in complete security. After lunch time the waste ground is the resort of old people who come there to feed on the sunshine like lizards. But after the hour when the children and the middle aged couples go to bed, to sleep and dream, it is an uninhibited paradise with no room for evasion or subterfuge, where all know what they are after, where they make love nobly, almost harshly, on the soft ground which still retains the lines scratched in by the little girl who spent the morning playing hop-scotch, and the neat, perfectly round holes dug by the boy who greedily used all his spare time to play at marbles.
I’ve never heard the terms ‘waste ground’ or ‘waste plot’ mean anything other than a ‘trash dump’. Is something lost in the translation, or is this not necessarily *fresh air?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear musick: My guess is that "waste" in the passage you posted is an adjective meaning that the area has "been laid waste" by too many people and too little effort to keep turf in good condition.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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In the UK waste ground would commonly refer to what I think you guys in the States would call an empty lot - or similar. The general connotation I would understand is a patch of ground, not neccessarily extensive, which is wild and undeveloped by contrast with the surrounding townscape. It is also virtually axiomatic that such an area makes a *fine imaginative place for youngsters to play...!  I think TS Eliot clearly drew on both his USA and UK language experience - never more so than in his most famous poem...
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
I agree, Mav, that this is a poor translation. I have no doubt this refers to what we USns call a vacant lot, which is a bare and unused tract of ground in the midst of inhabited tracts which are in use. It is usually a piece of ground which has somehow never been built on whilst its neighbors have been put to use, or in some cases one which did have some improvement (technical term for "building") which has burned down and disappeared or torn down, and never replaced.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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Bill crowed triumphant: Here is a URL to annoy CK: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr19.htmlI'm pretty hard to annoy generally and this url annoys me ever so slightly for only one reason: I can't see why I'm supposed to be annoyed. It was an interesting link. Que pasa, Bill? Wow was, I'm sure, right about macaroni. Macaronis were dandies of the weirdest kind, and the usage of the word in that sense in the "official" version of the song seems to be confirmed by the "Yankee Doodle Dandy" line. I remember reading something about the War of Independence years ago which suggested that it was more of a civil war than a war against a foreign oppressor/aggressor. It had all of the ingredients of a civil war - families divided, scores being paid off, that kind of thing. In some areas, it was suggested, the British were almost incidental to events rather than the main event themselves. I don't really know a hell of a lot about the minutiae of that period. What do you USns think?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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