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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 261
enthusiast
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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 261
three or so years down the line and half way through a degree later... dunno if any of you'll remember me

anyway, it occurred to me that some of you might enjoy this odd old farmer's saying I came across in a BBC radio serial some time ago:
"as useful as a toad with sidepockets"

any idea if it's genuine?
so how useful is a toad with sidepockets?
and what does the toad get out of it?

any more obscure agricultural sayings out there?

Last edited by bonzaialsatian; 07/14/2007 4:09 PM.
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Bonzai! Welcome home. Love the toad with sidepockets. Lot better for mixed company than some others I can think of.

Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
speaking of Old Farmers, and weren't we just, a subscriber sent me this yesterday:

in the 'Old Farmers Almanac' by today's date [7/13] there is this
quote: "cornscateous air is everywhere"...I looked first in my American
Heritage dictionary and was mildly surprised not to find it there then
went to my unabridged-same result- then to my compact edition of the
Oxford dictionary... nothing.


well, it's not in the OED either; in fact, near as I can tell, it's a nonce-word fashioned by the Old Farmer's themselves.

-joe (old, anyway) friday

p.s. - hi, dog!

Joined: Sep 2002
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cornscateous...
I wonder how that would be pronounced.. corn-SCA-teous... CORN-scateous... cornsca-TE-ous... cornscaCHIous...
(I have wandered around the room doing that but am unable to conjure up a suitably idyllic image of cornfields due to surrounding city concrete and the sound of flatmate asking what I'm doing)

strikes me as oddly uncomfortable to roll off the tongue.

Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
I had thought cornSKAYtious..

from the OFs "this term signifies warm, damp air. Though it signals ideal climatic conditions for growing corn..", one could surmise that the roots are corn + L. scatere, to bubble, gush, well, spring, or flow forth.

-joe (bubblicious) friday


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