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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I just read this word in a news story. Am I the only one who'd never heard of it before?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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well, there's swale and then there's swale. here's the type of thing a lad's likely to have run into:
There were miles of rolling ridges, rough in the hollows, and short rocky bits of road, and washes to cross, and a low, sandy swale where mesquites grouped a forest along a trickling inch-deep sheet of water.
- The Light of Western Stars, by Zane Grey
sometimes it was like reading T. E. Lawrence, considered in retrospect.
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I hear it all the time around here. When commenting on what's going on in the world, people will say to me, "Whale, ain't thayut jis swale."
TEd
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And the past tense is swole.
"Mah hayund's all swole up."
TEd
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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'Swale' is word I think of in terms of nature and the Romantic poets. It's a gorgeous, evocative, fully-developed one-syllable word, Jackie aside  . It sounds to my ear like an old-fashioned word, but not obsolete at all--a word like 'dell' and 'copse'--still used but sounding as though from a slower, more pensive time than our too-rushed one. (I just can't imagine the Solitary Reaper thinking, "I'm stressed-out, overworked, underpaid." ) Anyway, yes, I'm familiar with 'swale,' and it holds a place of nostalgic affection in my heart.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> one-syllable word, Jackie aside
I defy anyone to make that a genuine single syllable word, dub dub. Agreed, it comes close but the tongue tip has to move from touching the bottom teeth on /a/ to curl up into a reflex closure on the top palate for the /l/ sound. I bet if you slow your production of this word down, you'll find a sort of two-syllable remnant masquerading as a single syllable: mebbe something like "SWAYuhl".
heh, but that's not to say Jackie caint mek it into three, or mebbe four... :)
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addict
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addict
Joined: Jun 2000
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I'd only heard of it as in the River Swale in Swaledale. Where we spent a week of honeymoon, and of which I have a photo just to the left of my computer. Ah, memories... (why do men from tropical Queensland not want to live in the frozen north of England?!?!?) http://www.swaledale.net/gallery.stm
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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as a parallel, we honeymooned at Lake Louise/Banff Nat'l Park in Western Canada. my spouse won't even take a return trip because of the cold (but sunny) weather we encountered in mid-August!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the cold (but sunny) weather we encountered in mid-August AUGH--lucky devils who live there! All day, yesterday, I was absolutely furious because we actually had a temp. of 72ºF (22.2ºC); it is the middle of February--it is still supposed to be winter!!  One of these years I really do want to have a second home...somewhere in OZ or NZ, so I can spend six wintertime (more or less) months in each place. (Though I expect I'd have to be divorced or widowed first...) To relate to the opening ?--dunno whether you're the only one, Anna, but I had heard of swale; read-only, though--don't think I've heard anyone use it in conversation. The...uh...oh yes--dipthong in the middle (gosh, that sounds like it could be a song title, doesn't it?) of swale is just like the one in chair...isn't it? Chay-urr?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>dipthong in the middle.. of swale
you mean to say that it's spelled wroung too?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Now dang it, tsuwm--even a Britspeaker admitted that swale has two syllables. AAAAACK--you didn't mean that, did you? I just realized I spelled it wrong; oh, the shame! WAH--HH--HH...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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What Brazilian women wear to the beach. [/TEd]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Cross-thread to Graustark: both were famous racehorses.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In considering the Gates in NY, which I will never get to experience, I thought, "Ah, swales of swaths...."
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