#24557
03/24/2001 10:06 PM
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An it please Your Majesty, Pooh-Bah the First: I crave a boon. In all seriousness, no ribaldry intended, can you tell me if there is an etymological relationship between the word "thwart" meaning the transverse plank in a skiff on which one sits, and "twat" a vulgar word referring to the vulva .
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#24558
03/24/2001 11:20 PM
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um... no. is this a trick question? 
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#24559
03/25/2001 12:52 AM
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Dear me no. I have heard sailors pronounce "thwart" without the sound of the "h", making it sound just like "twat". And I have heard "thwart" applied to the male posterior, and wondered if a long time ago it applied to both male and female posteriors.
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#24560
03/25/2001 3:01 AM
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My turn, please, tsuwm: is there a common link between
spire and spiral? (Glad you started this thread, Bill.)
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#24561
03/25/2001 3:20 AM
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>I... wondered if a long time ago it applied to both male and female posteriors. a long time ago, probably not. this seems more like a modern <ahem> emergence, with thwart (a rower's bench or seat) perhaps affecting a U.S. dialect usage of t'wa't to mean buttocks, as a result of the pronunciation you cite. interesting, bill.
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#24562
03/25/2001 3:29 AM
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>spire and spiral
you guys are posting posers today.
there are six different nouns and three unique verbs, all spelled spire. one each, noun and verb, have the sense of "spiral" or coil.
but if you're asking if spire as in a column is related to spiral as in a coil, the answer is, I think, no -- they have different roots.
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#24563
03/25/2001 3:53 AM
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you guys are posting posers today.
I think you must have miscounted. Only one guy posted a poser in this thread. Thank you for answering mine, though.
I couldn't figure out how a straight-up-and-down spire could be related to a corkscrew shape. (By the way, I don't mind Latin or whatever when it is given as a part of an explanation of something, for ex. the root of a word.)
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#24564
03/25/2001 4:04 AM
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>>you guys are posting posers today. >I think you must have miscounted. Only one guy posted a poser in this thread. I think you may have misconstrued. "posting" (as in posting posers) doesn't have to be verbal. 
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#24565
03/25/2001 11:00 AM
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>an etymological relationship between the word "thwart" meaning the transverse plank in a skiff on which one sits, and "twat" a vulgar word referring to the vulva
Some of the previous posts were correct with respects to Thwart (athwart), but TWAT came from and entirely different source.
TWAT
[Of obscure origin.]
1. (See quot. 1727.)
Erroneously used (after quot. 1660) by Browning Pippa Passes iv. ii. 96 under the impression that it denoted some part of a nun's attire.
1656 R. Fletcher tr. Martial ii. xliv. 104. 1660 Vanity of Vanities 50 They talk't of his having a Cardinalls Hat, They'd send him as soon an Old Nuns Twat. a1704 T. Brown Sober Slip in Dark Wks. 1711 IV. 182 A dang'rous Street, Where Stones and Twaits in frosty Winters meet. 1719 D'Urfey Pills III. 307. 1727 Bailey vol. II, Twat, pudendum muliebre. Twat-scowerer, a Surgeon or Doctor. E. Ward. 1919 E. E. Cummings Let. 18 Aug. (1969) 61 On Tuesday an Uhlan To her twat put his tool in. 1934 H. Miller Tropic of Cancer 55 A man with something between his legs that could+make her grab that bushy twat of hers with both hands and rub it joyfully. 1959 N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 101 The clothes off, the guards are driving them into the other room, and smack their hands on skinny flesh and bony flesh, it's bag a tittie and snatch a twot. 1970 G. Greer Female Eunuch 39 No woman wants to find out that she has a twat like a horse-collar. 1973 P. White Eye of Storm iii. 137 This young thing with the swinging hair and partially revealed twat.
2. A term of vulgar abuse. Cf. twit n.1 2b and cunt 2.
1929 F. Manning Middle Parts of Fortune II. xv. 383 Yes, they let a bloody twat like 'im off. 1933 M. Lowry Ultramarine i. 16 He can't help it if you're just a bloody, senseless twat. 1958 H. Williamson Love & Loveless i. 27 Looked a proper twott to me. 1969 P. Roth Portnoy's Complaint 211 Here comes another dumb and stupid remark out of that brainless twat. 1978 J. Updike Coup (1979) iii. 123 Divorce me and you'll have a slot for this new twat, what's her name. 1979 R. Fiennes Hell on Ice ix. 134 Sterns not prows, you twot.
3. U.S. dial. The buttocks.
1950 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xiii. 20 Twat,+the buttocks. 1964 M. Kelly March to Gallows xii. 132, I could tell her what to do with her twat if she's frightened to sit on it.
Thwart n.
[app. a n. use (which came in after 1725) of thwart adv. and adj., having reference to the position of the rowing benches or seats athwart or across the boat. Whether its use was partly due to similarity of sound to thaught, thawt, or thought, previously applied to the same thing, is uncertain. Our latest contemporary instance of ‘thaught or thought’ is of 1721, of thoat 1697, of thout 1725, while our first of ‘thaughts or thwarts’ is of 1736, so that the appellations were continuous in use, as if the one had passed into the other. But, for the full determination of the relations between thoft, thought or thaught, and thwart, fuller evidence between 1500 and 1700 is needed. Cf. thoft, thought2.]
A seat across a boat, on which the rower sits; a rower's bench.
[1721 Bailey, Thoughts, the Rowers Seats in a Boat.] 1736 I (folio), Thaughts, v. Thwarts. Ibid., Thwarts, (a Sea Term) the boards or benches laid a-cross boats and gallies, upon which the rowers sit. 1770 Cook Voy. round World ii. x. (1773) 462 A considerable number of thwarts were laid from gunwale to gunwale. 1776 Falconer's Dict. Marine, Thwart, the seat or bench of a boat whereon the rowers sit to manage the oars. 1897 F. T. Bullen Cruise Cachalot 41 We drew each man his oar across the boat and lashed it firmly down with a piece of line spliced to each thwart.
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#24566
03/25/2001 1:41 PM
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Thanks, Rouspeteur. While the area of the body involved, and the sound suggest the possibility of a common origin, there is no record of it. I was also thinking of the analogy seen in "seat" which means the thing that supports the posterior, but is also used at times to refer to the buttocks, and the part of trousers that covers that area. So, snip this thread.
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#24567
03/25/2001 3:48 PM
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old hand
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old hand
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I may be waaaaay off base here, but might there be a connection with the French word "toit," meaning "roof?" The vulva does somewhat resemble a roof, having two halves that peak at the center, and the pronunciation is similar except for having no "t" at the end..
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#24568
03/25/2001 3:58 PM
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> snip this thread well bill, that is of course the same OED stuff I read, and I'm thinking there's no real obvious reason for the buttocks sense to have developed in the U.S., and I was merely entertaining the possibility that you might be onto (or on) something. 
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#24569
03/25/2001 5:40 PM
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If there was a connection, it would have been a long time ago, and just not gotten into print. But I am grateful for the information provided.
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#24570
03/25/2001 9:59 PM
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Dear Jackie: There is a relationship between spire and spiral but it is very complicated. I looked at the dictionary for half an hour and couldn't figure out any interesting way of discussing it. I have always wondered if the spiral top of a conch gave some prehistoric man an idea for a boring tool. I looked on internet for information about the chonchoid curve, but am unable to figure out why Nicomedes named this curve after the shell .
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#24571
03/26/2001 1:51 AM
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old hand
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old hand
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Golly gee whillikers, Dr. Bill, I'm amazed that you haven't connected all this to spirochetes in some way by now!
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#24572
03/26/2001 2:17 PM
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In reply to:
I may be waaaaay off base here, but might there be a connection with the French word "toit," meaning "roof?" The vulva does somewhat resemble a roof, having two halves that peak at the center, and the pronunciation is similar except for having no "t" at the end.
This extrapolation sounds reasonable Geoff but would only be applicable if we used, or ever used, the word toit to describe the vulva; which we do not. I will not write the names used as most are quite crude but none really resemble toit or twat.
I checked my Larousse, Petit Robert and Dictionnaire de la langue française just in case. They do not have that definition either.
Oh well, good try though.
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#24573
03/26/2001 2:28 PM
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looked on internet for information about the chonchoid curve, but am unable to figure out why Nicomedes named this curve after the shell
Okay-- what is a chonchoid curver? is it the curve that is a ratio related to "golden rectangles"?-- (i think the company Sybase uses it in there logo-- )
Its on of those math things, that i never really studied, but have come across--and the resulting spiral -- is one of those curious things that is also found in nature-- { like the sequence of numbers named after....(it is on the tip of my tongue.. Fab..?? Fib..??) 0, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13...} the curve is found in seashells, such as conch shells, and other natural forms.
Or is it something else entireley?
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#24574
03/26/2001 3:56 PM
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veteran
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Thwart
Don't snip yet. I don't know what kind of sanitation arrangements there may have been in former times on ships; I imagine there were none. So if you didn't have a nice flushing head like we have today, what did you do when you had a load to dump? My guess is that your bum went over the thwart. So, if "thwart" was pronounced in a New England accent, or some English accent and came out "twaht", is that a connection (connexion)? Hmmm.
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#24575
03/26/2001 4:11 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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My guess is that your bum went over the thwart.
Actually, it covered a bucket (really).
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#24576
03/27/2001 10:04 AM
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addict
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#24577
03/27/2001 11:37 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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And discussed in the oddly named book, "Dynamic Symmetry"
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#24578
03/27/2001 2:35 PM
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This all find and dandy but how on earth did thwart also come to mean to foil somebody`s plans, to oppose successfully? It is such an oddly spelled word, I can`t imagine two different cultures came up with the same spelling for two different things.
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#24579
03/27/2001 2:56 PM
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two different thingsLike a lot of ‘thw~’ words, this came in to the melting pot of English from Scandinavia. In this case the root word thverr meant crossed or perverse, thence thvert, thence thwart. So the thing in common is that the bench is athwartships – across the width – whilst the verb form of thwarting an action is to place an obstacle across its path. Ain’t language wonderful?
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#24580
03/27/2001 2:57 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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<<how on earth did thwart also come to mean to foil somebody`s plans, to oppose successfully?>>
Just a guess: to sit athwart -- across (in front of) -- in the way = to block
IP
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#24581
03/27/2001 2:58 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Mav's got it, (tho I was on the sniff)
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#24582
03/29/2001 4:33 PM
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I recently read a geology book that mentioned the "Siberian traps" where massive volcanic outpourings millions of years ago produced successive higher but smaller huge circles. The word "traps" is said to be Norwegian, and is obviously related to German "Treppe" meaning stairs. In English "trip" can mean to dance as "trip the light fantastic". I should welcome seeing others post similar word comparisons.
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#24583
03/30/2001 11:35 PM
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Taken from Burnside URL given by inselpeter:
Take pedigree, for example. It is very far from obvious that it is
etymologically derived from the crane’s foot. In Middle French pié
(pied) de grue is the foot of the crane. In early manuscripts, lines of
descent were so drawn as to suggest the footprint of a crane, and the
resemblance provided a metaphor for the relations depicted in the
diagram. Introduced into English in the 15th century, the word was
originally spelled pee-de-grew, pedegru, or pedicru.
Mentioning "Mademoiselle from Armentieres" reminded me of GI who had been in France telling me how "cherry" came to mean virginity. He spoke French very well, so that he was accepted into nice families. A French WWI soldier in one of those families told him that when the "doughboys" tried to meet French girls from nice families, they were told "Elle est cherie." Meaning "cherished" = closely guarded by their parents. This got corrupted into meaning having intact hymen.
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#24584
03/31/2001 12:17 AM
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According to what I know, the guy's name was Fibonacci. But I've seen other references to Fabonacci. Since both names are eminently googlable™, which is correct and whence the confusion?
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#24585
03/31/2001 1:42 AM
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Dear AnnaStrophic:
Fibonacci Series, in mathematics, series of numbers in which each member is the sum of the two preceding numbers. For example, a series beginning 0, 1 … continues as 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so forth. The series was discovered by the Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (circa 1170-c. 1240), also called Leonardo of Pisa. Fibonacci numbers have many interesting properties and are widely used in mathematics. Natural patterns, such as the spiral growth of leaves on some trees, often exhibit the Fibonacci series.
"Fibonacci Series," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The funicular railroad up MtVesuvius was inspiration for a song "Funiculi, Funicula"
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#24586
03/31/2001 11:22 AM
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Thank you, Dr Bill. I am familiar with the Fibonacci series, and Helen of Troy described it several posts up. However, rodward called the man FAbonacci, and I was wondering why the mathematician's name is spelled both ways.
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#24587
03/31/2001 6:03 PM
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Today wow suggested "halcyon" as part of a name for an estate. The etymology is interesting, and taken from the Burnside site in URL inselpeter gave.
Halcyon is now seen only in the idiom "the halcyon days" although it was once used as a verb. It is generally used as referring to days distant and more pleasant, shrouded in the contentment of selective memory. Properly used, it refers to the 14 days of calm weather at sea which, according to Greek legend, interrupt the storms of mid-Winter. It comes from hals (salt, or the sea) and kuo (to brood on). According to Greek legend, the kingfisher makes its nest on the water and hatches its eggs during the 14 days of calm at mid-Winter. Properly used, halcyon means the tranquil spell surrounding the Winter solstice.
The same site gives etymology of word clue, but it is too long to include here.
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#24588
04/02/2001 10:20 AM
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Rod Ward called the man FabonaciA typo in quick response to a query. I will try to be more careful when presenting "Facts" as opposed to opinions in future. Mea Culpa. (and while I was berating others for misspoilling my name!  ) Rad
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#24589
04/02/2001 10:41 AM
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(and while I was berating others for misspoilling my name!)
'S'all right, Red, we love you anyway.
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#24590
04/07/2001 4:02 PM
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Asparagus (Eng.); Asperge (Fr.); Esparrago (Sp.); Asparago (It.); Spargel (Germ.)
All of these terms come from the Latin asparagus, which was adopted from the Greek word of the same name that means "sparrow grass," as it was often served with little cooked sparrows
One of my uncles used to call "asparagus" "sparrowgrass"
and I thought he was just joking, and never asked him about it. Perhaps he got it from his father, who was quite well read.
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#24591
04/07/2001 4:51 PM
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There are some errors in the etymology given below. In the first place Leeuwenhoek's name is spelled wrong, he was not a monk, and he did not discover cells, which were first described by Robert Hook.
Cell
Originally meant a monk's living space. It was a monk, Leuenhook, who invented the first microscope. His first specimen was a peice of cork, which was made up of many small rectangular sub-parts. To him, the small rectangles were like the small room monks lived in, known as cells. Thus, he called these microscopic building blocks "cells".
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#24592
04/07/2001 5:03 PM
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I was surprised to find "beads" came from a word meaning prayer. So "prayer beads" is a tautology.
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5ME bede, prayer, prayer bead < OE bed < biddan, to pray, ask: see BID16
1 a small, usually round piece of glass, wood, metal, etc., pierced for stringing
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#24593
04/09/2001 4:45 PM
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veteran
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Asparagus
I was told that the word came from 'asperges', the phallic-looking thing a priest uses to sprinkle holy water. This name, in turn, from a line in one of the Psalms, "Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor", "Wash me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be clean." Of course, one wonders if this is merely a supposition, or a joke, or if the boot is on the wrong leg and it is the sprinkler that takes its name from the vegetable.
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#24594
04/09/2001 6:11 PM
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Re: asparagus
Dear Bob: I think your version sounds much more probable.
I also remember reading that the head of the procession spread air conditioning fragrances and incense from a censer because the congregation, having no bathing facilities nor incentives to use them, smelled bad.
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#24595
04/09/2001 6:17 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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I also remember reading that the head of the procession spread air conditioning fragrances and incense from a censer because the congregation, having no bathing facilities nor incentives to use them, smelled bad.
Do you think it more likely to be because incense was one of the daily offerings at the Temple in Jerusalem?
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#24596
04/09/2001 6:19 PM
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AHD says it comes from the Latin --- Asparagus. Interesting note on the etymology, including a side trip into Sparrowgrass country. http://www.bartleby.com/61/47/A0464700.html
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