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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 320
enthusiast
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OP
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 320 |
In AWADmail Anu suggests using the word tautonym to describe a person's name when the first and last names are the same. There's Humbert Humbert in "Lolita," and (stretching a bit) Major Major in "Catch -22." Any others in literature or history?
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Jerome K Jerome the author of Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummell.
Regarding Bummell. I haven't read the book, but I have a feeling that to be "on the bummell" meant tramping about with no particular aim in view - rather like going walk-about. Can anyone confirm this or am I way off beam? If it is so was this the origin of the American usage of the word "bum"?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
bum - 1864, Amer.Eng., from bummer
"loafer, idle person" (1855), possibly an
extension of the British word for "backside"
(similar development took place in Scotland,
16c.), but more prob. from Ger. slang
bummler "loafer," popular in the North's
army in the Civil War (many Ger. immigrants
in the ranks), from bummeln "go slowly,
waste time." Bum's rush "forcible ejection"
first recorded 1910. Bummer "bad
experience" is 1960s slang.
Incidentally, in German, a slow train that stopped at every station was called a "Bummelzug".
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Joined: Mar 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Dear wwh,
OK, thanks for that. It looks as though the connection with the book title is probably correct, but I shall have to find it to make sure. It is many years since I read Three Men in a Boat, which is the better known of the two books - a slightly strange, mannered, period piece with much gentle humour.
dxb
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummell
Funny, because these books were both touted to me as all-time-great English humour by a friend, just last weekend. A timely reminder to get my Amazon order in.
I understand that Three Men on the Bummell is about the misadventures of the same people as they go on a bike ride somewhere in Europe. Austria, perhaps?
Given that this wouldn't exactly be a Tour De France I suspect Bill's association with bum/bummeln is spot on.
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