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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
folksiism I thought you said you couldn't spell...
reference to today's W.A.D Thanks, Anna--you made me go look:
"She (Georgette Heyer) wanted to write more serious historical novels.
Unfortunately the books she wrote outside her period have a tendency
towards the gadzookery of Baroness Orczy."
The Romantic Novels of Georgette Heyer; BBC (London, UK); May 17, 2002.
And here I'd assumed she knew what she was talking about. (Actually, in all two books of hers that I've read, she may have; they certainly were not serious novels, just what the library happened to have on the shelf. I was just surprised to see a ref. to her use of obscure words, other than my own.)
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,074 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,074 Likes: 2 |
soi-disant
Actually, isn't "soi-disant" more like "self-styled" (said-of-itself) rather than "so-called"?
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Joined: Jan 2004
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Yes, and sogenannt means something more like 'thus-named'.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Umm… we gonna have to do some massive cleanup if we wanna keep this thread pure for connie to have a chance when she comes back.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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someone could PM her not to read past the first screenful until she's replied..
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeahbut®. She might could get in to the thread before reading PMs.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, I don't know when you use it in English wof but in French it can mean both - everything depends on how it is said.
I do know though, that sometimes French words used in English can sometimes vary in definition slightly.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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French words used in English can sometimes vary in definition slightly
Like cul de sac?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dunno, un cul de sac is a dead-end road (well apart from the bottom end of a bag.) Isn't it that in English?
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,074 Likes: 2 |
Umm. Well, yes, that's it in English, but it isn't precisely that in French; we've lost the literal meaning in translation. Cul is a medical term, also part of a ribald exercise for French pronunciation*. Tain't a fit word for a G-rated Board like this one. ;-)
*("Tu pus du cul nu," if you must know. I'm not sure it's used that much any more.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I think it may just be street slang. There was a tale in Reader's Digest's Life in These United States of a young couple who had met in Viet Nam while he was over there in the not so recent unpleasantries. Everyone in the suburban neighborhood thought it was so cute when she said how nice it was to live in a 'cuddle sack'. My suspicion was that the French that was used in Viet Nam included the not so nice version of cul-de-sac and she couldn't imagine all these innocent Americans saying they lived in an asshole, so she must be mishearing it.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
someone could PM her not to read past the first screenful until she's replied..
Being her personal chauffeur through the big, big city upon her return, I'll inform her of where not to go...
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A cul is not precisely an asshole. It means buttocks but said a bit crudely than the regular term, "le fessier." Les fesses being the butt-cheeks.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A cul is not precisely an asshole
What about the sac part?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sac is just a bag. The cul de sac is the butt end of a bag.
I guess they call a dead-end that because the U created by houses on both sides and at end make it look like the bottom of a bag.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"Cul-de-sac - a blind pouch or tubular cavity closed at one end"
Quite appropriate for describing a short dead-end street with houses along the length and around the circular end.
Anatomically, if a baby is born with an interrupting membrane in the colon a short distance above the anus ("cul"), as does occur once in a while, then there is a "blind pouch or tubular cavity closed at one end," and the poor little tyke has a "cul-de-sac."
Forty years ago this was presented as the origin of the term "cul-de-sac." Of course not everything we've been taught is necessarily true...but this one does make perfect sense.
Maybe this should have all been below the line, in "Words from Medicine"...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Finally, the deeply tanned, peeling, hammocking one casts her vote.  EDITThanks to my personal chaufer in the big, big city, I knew not to read past the definitions before casting my vote, which should be obvious from the vote I cast 
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