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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
was there ever originally a seamster?
Yes, according to Atomica. (YCLIU)
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Just wanted to say that I took well, yeah! jungles got big snakes and stuff! as a joke, not a sneer.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Just wanted to say that I took yeah! jungles got big snakes and stuff! a joke, not a sneer.
So did I.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
joke v. sneer
thanks guys, I coulnd't recall using the sneer-icon.
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
It's like we've been trying to tell ya, Ron - without emoticons, it's a jungle out there.<eg>
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
I was being melodramatic, facetious. Never thought you were being nasty.
Rude of me to suggest it, I suppose, but I thought *I* was being funny.
k
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
Wordminstrel, do you have such sobriquets for any of the rest of us? And does this help with understanding?
"No" and "No" [but it contributes to a lot of mis-understanding].
How gracefully you have made your point.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I thought *I* was being funny.  Sorry, Sweetie. Not the first time I've misunderstood, here. wordminstrel: *kiss*
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
I'm not sure. I've always heard the terms rain-forest and jungle used interchangeably. True, jungles are usually thought of as impenetrable. Jungle implies tangled and unmanaged, because jungles ARE tangled and unmanaged. If there were no difference, we wouldn't need another word. As I attempt to recall conversations I've had with people who have been to jungles, the distinquishing factors have been 1) it's a lot darker throughout much more of a jungle, 2) it is more difficult to travel than through a mere woods. Although even in mere forests there are thickets and brambles and stands and other obstructions which are generally trivial to circum-navigate.
I say 'always' above, but the term rain-forest has only come to my attention in the last 25 years or so. Somewhere in that time-span it just became more common to hear "Amazon rain-forest" instead of "Amazon jungle," for example. There may be a slight difference in usage - rain-forest tends to be used when talking about the object in theoretical terms, whereas jungle seems to be more commonly used when the speaker is talking about actually going into or having gone into it. I'm not sure. Haven't really thought too much about it except to try to decipher those conversations of years ago.
It worked for Upton Sinclair because Jungles are places where the laws of modern, human civilization have not applied until recently. I don't think what's happening is that we use words like jungle to describe places where we are trying to justify our involvement. Or, if it does happen, it's completely ancilary to the fact that those places really are jungles.
Jungles do tend to be uncharted - by westerners - or anyone. It's one thing to have a verbal "map," mosaicked from various personal recollections - quite another to have a consistent, persistent, piece of paper that anyone can use. Of course, such a highfalutin thing as a map is more trouble than it's worth to the indigenous people, same as it would be for one of us when we're walking from our house to our local market. But if we go past the areas with which we are commonly familiar, maps tend to be very, very handy - and far easier to use, and far, far more reliable than verbal descriptions. (For those of us who can read them. My wife can't and that's why my daughters are navigators when we travel.)
I wonder now - did the early western explorer/conquerors refer to wooded areas in the temperate zone as jungles as a way of justifying intrusion?
k
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Per AHD, the defining characteristic of a jungle is the tangled, impenetrable growth, the defining factor of a rain forest is the annual rainfall (duh).
This would seem to me to allow for a large area of overlap.
As an interesting sidebar, the word jungle comes from the Sanskrit word for desert.
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