#74731
07/02/2002 10:37 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The gentle craft. Angling. The pun is on gentle, a maggot or grub used for baiting the hook in angling.
Can anyone tell me how fishing came to be called "angling"?
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#74732
07/02/2002 10:49 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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George Sand The pen-name of Mme. Dudevant, born at Paris 1804. Her maiden name was Dupin.
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#74733
07/03/2002 3:47 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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CHARLEMAGNE was nearly 8 feet in height, and was so strong he could squeeze together three
horseshoes with his hands.
I wondeer how good the authority for this statement is.
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#74734
07/03/2002 3:53 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Gibberish (g hard). Geber, the Arabian, was by far the greatest alchemist of the eleventh century, and
wrote several treatises on "the art of making gold" in the usual mystical jargon, because the ecclesiastics
would have put to death any one who had openly written on the subject. Friar Bacon, in 1282, furnishes a
specimen of this gibberish. He is giving the prescription for making gunpowder, and says -
"Sed tamen salis-petrę
LURU MONE CAP URBE
Et sulphuris."
The second line is merely an anagram of Carbonum pulvere (pulverised charcoal).
"Gibberish," compare jabber, and gabble.
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#74735
07/03/2002 3:56 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Gibraltar (g soft). A contraction of Gibel al Tari (Gibal Tar), "mountain of Tari." This Tari ben Zeyad
was an Arabian general who, under the orders of Mousa, landed at Calpė in 710, and utterly defeated
Roderick, the Gothic King of Spain. Cape Tarifa is named from the same general.
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#74736
07/03/2002 4:00 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Gift-horse Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. When a present is made, do not inquire too minutely
into its intrinsic value. (An experienced horse man can judge age, and so the value of a horse by its
teeth.)
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#74737
07/03/2002 4:05 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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blue[Re Gaberdine: Gabardine' (3 syl.). A Jewish coarse cloak. (Spanish, gavardina, a long coarse cloak.)
One of my dictionaries at home goes back a bit further with gaberdine... just to the 13th C., and relates the word to Pilgriams cloak (not so much a Jewish cloak as a cloak of one on a pilgrimage to Jerusulam.. )
here is more from Bartelby's
Obsolete French gauvardine, from Old French galvardine, perhaps from Middle High German wallevart, pilgrimage : wallen, to roam (from Old High German walln; see wel-2 in Appendix I) + vart, journey (from Old High German, from faran, to go; see per-2 in Appendix I).
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#74738
07/03/2002 4:10 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Gig (g hard). A whipping top, made like a Ń. ( I haven't seen a kid with a "gig" since I was
ten years old. The top was cone shaped, with a screw inserted deeply into tip, and ground to a point.
One laid a short length of string about like fish line a short ways from mtoiddly to the tip, and
then wound the string tightly about the top, more than halways toward the top. The other
end of the string had of bowline knot that fitted over the thumb. When the top was thrown
down, the tension on the string forced it to spin very rapidly. On a hard surface it would
spin for perhaps a minute. Big deal in those days. Some kids tried to split other kids' tops
by aiming their top at them. I never succeeded at that.
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#74739
07/03/2002 4:22 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Girl This word has given rise to a host of guesses: -
Railey suggests garrula, a chatterbox.
Minshew ventures the Italian girella, a weather-cock.
Skinner goes in for the Anglo-Saxon ceorl, a churl.
Why not girdle, as young women before marriage wore a girdle [girle]; and part of a Roman marriage
ceremony was for the bridegroom to loose the zone.
As for guessing, the word gull may put in a claim (1 Henry iv. 1); so may the Greek koure, a girl, with
a diminutive suffix koure-la, whence gourla, gourl, gurl, girl.
(The Latin gerula means a maid that attends on a child. Chaucer spells the word gurl.)
Probably the word is a variation of darling, Anglo-Saxon, deorling.
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#74740
07/03/2002 4:27 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Glass is from the Celtic glas (bluish-green), the colour produced by the woad employed by the ancient
Britons in dyeing their bodies. Pliny calls it glastrum, and Cęsar vitrum.
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#74741
07/03/2002 4:31 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Glass Slipper (of Cinderella). A curious blunder of the translator, who has mistaken vair (sable) for verre
(glass). Sable was worn only by kings and princes, so the fairy gave royal slippers to her favourite.
Hamlet says he shall discard his mourning and resume "his suit of sables" (iii. 2).
Glasse (Mrs. Hannah), a name immortalised by the reputed saying in a cookery book, "First catch your
hare," then cook it according to the directions given. This, like many other smart sayings, evidently grew.
The word in the cookery-book is "cast" (i.e. flay). "Take your hare, and when it is cast" (or cased), do so
and so. (See Case, Catch your Hare.)
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#74742
07/03/2002 5:03 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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It was Voltaire who said, "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."
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#74743
07/03/2002 5:11 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Godiva (Lady). Patroness of Coventry. In 1040, Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry, imposed
certain exactions on his tenants, which his lady besought him to remove. To escape her importunity, he
said he would do so if she would ride naked through the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and
the Earl faithfully kept his promise.
The legend asserts that every inhabitant of Coventry kept indoors at the time, but a certain tailor peeped
through his window to see the lady pass. Some say he was struck blind, others that his eyes were put out
by the indignant townsfolk, and some that he was put to death. Be this as it may, he has ever since been
called "Peeping Tom of Coventry." Tennyson has a poem on the subject.
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#74744
07/03/2002 7:29 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Golden Fleece Ino persuaded her husband, Athamas, that his son Phryxos was the cause of a famine
which desolated the land, and the old dotard ordered him to be sacrificed to the angry gods. Phryxos
being apprised of this order, made his escape over sea on a ram which had a golden fleece. When he
arrived at Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Zeus, and gave the fleece to King Ęe'tes, who hung it on a
sacred oak. It was afterwards stolen by Jason in his celebrated Argonautic expedition. (See Argo.)
I have read that the "Golden Fleece" is somehow a garbled legend from the days when gold was
obtained by pouring sediments from river over a sheep's fleece, the heavy gold particles being
trapped in the wool while the mud and clay were washed away.
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#74745
07/03/2002 7:48 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Goodman A husband or master is the Saxon guma or goma (a man), which in the inflected cases
becomes guman or goman. In St. Matt. xxiv. 43, "If the goodman of the house had known in what watch
the thief would come, he would have watched." Gomman and gommer, for the master and mistress of a
house, are by no means uncommon.
Joke on me. I thought it was literally "good man".
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#74746
07/03/2002 8:11 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Gourmand and Gourmet (French). The gourmand is one whose chief pleasure is eating; but a gourmet
is a connoisseur of food and wines. In England the difference is this: a gourmand regards quantity more
than quality, a gourmet quality more than quantity. (Welsh, gor, excess; gorm, a fulness; gourmod, too
much; gormant; etc.) (See Apicius.)
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#74747
07/03/2002 8:22 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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rammar Zenodotos invented the terms singular, plural, and dual.
The scholars of Alexandria and of the rival academy of Pergamos were the first to distinguish language
into parts of speech, and to give technical terms to the various functions of words.
The first Greek grammar was by Dionysios Thrax, and it is still extant. He was a pupil of Aristarchos.
Julius Cęsar was the inventor of the term ablative case.
English grammar is the most philosophical ever devised; and if the first and third personal pronouns, the
relative pronoun, the 3rd person singular of the present indicative of verbs, and the verb "to be" could be
reformed, it would be as near perfection as possible.
It was Kaiser Sigismund who stumbled into a wrong gender, and when told of it replied, "Ego sum
Imperator Romanorum, ct supra grammaticam ' (1520, 1548-1572).
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#74748
07/03/2002 8:31 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Grass Widow was anciently an unmarried woman who has had a child, but now the word is used for a
wife temporarily parted from her husband. The word means a grace widow, a widow by courtesy. (In
French, veuve de grace; in Latin, viduca de gratia; a woman divorced or separated from her husband by
a dispensation of the Pope, and not by death; hence, a woman temporally separated from her husband.)
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#74749
07/03/2002 8:44 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Greek Fire A composition of nitre, sulphur, and naphtha. Tow steeped in the mixture was hurled in a
blazing state through tubes, or tied to arrows. The invention is ascribed to Callinicos, of Heliopolis, A.D.
668.
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#74750
07/03/2002 8:45 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Greek Gift (A). A treacherous gift. The reference is to the Wooden Horse said to be a gift or offering to
the gods for a safe return from Troy, but in reality a ruse for the destruction of the city. (See Fatal Gifts.)
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
Virgil: Ęneid, ii. 49.
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#74751
07/04/2002 3:16 AM
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 8
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 8 |
wwh says
>>>Glass Slipper (of Cinderella). A curious blunder of the translator, who has mistaken vair (sable) for verre
(glass). Sable was worn only by kings and princes, so the fairy gave royal slippers to her favourite.<<<
And "vair" perhaps becomes English "fur"?
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#74752
07/04/2002 1:07 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Vairy possible. I'll try to look it up. Incidentally, all those posts are just quotes from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It had a painfully slow server, which you would hate http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/115.htmlSearch inidicates no relation of "vair" to "fur": fur - 1301, from O.Fr. fourrer "to line, sheathe," from fuerre "sheath, covering," from a Frank. word based on P.Gmc. *fothram "sheath." The n. is from the v. It was first applied to "animal hair" 15c.
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#74753
07/04/2002 4:06 PM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Interesting that Goodman has also become a surname.
dxb
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#74754
07/04/2002 4:17 PM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Farthing A fourth part
I well remember the farthing - it must have been legal tender into the 1960s I would guess. It had the monarch's head on the front and a wren on the back. A small coin, it was about the size of the silver threepenny bit that we used to put into Christmas puddings.
Cloth used to be priced to the farthing when I was a boy - 19 shillings, eleven pence and three farthings a yard, or nineteen-eleven-three, was a very common price for my mother to pay for dress making material.
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#74756
07/04/2002 4:35 PM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
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Genoa from the Latin, genu (the knee); so called from the bend made there by the Adriatic.
I believe it is also a type of ship's sail. Perhaps it was a type used by ships from that area?
dxb
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#74757
07/04/2002 4:40 PM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
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Gig (g hard). A whipping topCan one of the musicians on the board tell me why a rock band's performance is called a "gig"? Showing my age here  . dxb
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#74758
07/04/2002 4:46 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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i too remember farthings from a childhood trip to Dublin.. back then the irish pound was tied to the value of the english pound, and it was $5.70 US to £1 Sterling.. and a farthing was worth almost 2 US cents! Farthings and Ha'pennies went far in a candy store! thru'pence was a fortune!
(mind you i was also mesmerized by a woman on a bus, she had some souvenier jewelry made from US Mercury dimes.. and i sat staring at them.. she started to explain to me that it was American money, and i repied, yes, i knew, she was wearing over $1.70 as jewelry! how rich i thought, she must be to be able to wear money!)
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#74759
07/04/2002 5:08 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My dictionary has four words spelled "gig". The fourth one is:
>gig4 7gig8
n.
[Slang]
1 a job performing music, esp. jazz or rock
2 any job
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#74760
07/04/2002 5:13 PM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dr. Bill, gigs (the tops) can still be found in any mercado in Mexico, at least they could last I looked! My nephews all had them. Thanks for that memory. 
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