#26419
04/11/2001 1:47 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163
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While working on a term paper just now, I had occasion to use the word gray (grey) and realised that I was wholly inconsistent in my application of the two spellings. (Realising simultaneously that I was heartily sick and tired of writing the aforementioned paper and wishing to be diverted.) Whichever spelling struck my fancy at the time was what I used. I looked in the OED for guidence and found the text below. I would be interested in hearing which form people use and where (geographically that is). ...Each of the current spellings has some analogical support. The only mod.Eng. words repr. OE. words ending in -<aeacu>¼ are key (which is irrelevant on account of its pronunciation), whey, and clay. If we further take into consideration the words repr. OE. words in -<aeacu>¼e, viz. blay or bley, fey, wey, we have three (or four) instances of ey and only two (or one) of ay. On the other hand, this advantage in favour of grey is counterbalanced by the facts that clay is the only word of the five which is in very general use, and that grey is phonetically ambiguous, while gray is not. With regard to the question of usage, an inquiry by Dr. Murray in Nov. 1893 elicited a large number of replies, from which it appeared that in Great Britain the form grey is the more frequent in use, notwithstanding the authority of Johnson and later Eng. lexicographers, who have all given the preference to gray. In answer to questions as to their practice, the printers of The Times stated that they always used the form gray; Messrs. Spottiswoode and Messrs. Clowes always used grey; other eminent printing firms had no fixed rule. Many correspondents said that they used the two forms with a difference of meaning or application: the distinction most generally recognized being that grey denotes a more delicate or a lighter tint than gray. Others considered the difference to be that gray is a ‘warmer’ colour, or that it has a mixture of red or brown (cf. also the quot. under 1c below). In the twentieth century, grey has become the established spelling in the U.K., whilst gray is standard in the United States. There seems to be nearly absolute unanimity as to the spelling of ‘The Scots Greys’, ‘a pair of greys’. As the word is both etymologically and phonetically one, it is undesirable to treat its graphic forms as differing in signification.]
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#26420
04/11/2001 10:05 AM
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Carpal Tunnel
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From education in SE England to living now in the western reaches of Wales, I have personally only encountered 'gray' through USA contacts - 'grey' is UK standard, I would confirm. Interesting idea that the two spellings might suggest different connotations of shade for some people - that had never occurred to me! Is 'a' a redder colour than 'e'?
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#26421
04/11/2001 12:32 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The only division I have ever seen between the two spellings is geographic. It is "gray" in the US and "grey" in Britain.
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#26422
04/11/2001 2:11 PM
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veteran
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veteran
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Except that there are some contrary people, myself included, who spell it 'grey' in the US, and always have.
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#26423
04/11/2001 2:21 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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me too-- and if i didn't do consistantly before i started here, all kudos I got for "grey" would have made me a firm believer in grey!
but my parents, both from ireland used UK spellings, and UK words-- (nought for zero) so i might have learned "grey" and never unlearned it (I unlearned colour and labour).
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#26424
04/11/2001 2:47 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, the social deviants BYB and of troy aside ...
The Gray/Grey distinction seems to carry through to the surname spelling. My local phone book lists about 200 households with the surname "Gray," but only three spelled "Grey." Does the opposite hold true in the UK?
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#26425
04/11/2001 3:26 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
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some contrary people, myself included, who spell it 'grey' in the USand one very popular English author of the 1930s to 50s, Dornford Yates, whose heroines were always and invariably endowed with "gray" eyes. (BTW - I think this is a YART - I'm sure I've divulged this fascinating piece of info before on this board!) 
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#26426
04/11/2001 3:27 PM
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Posts: 609
addict
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regarding Gray/Grey for surnames in UK; the Portsmouth telephone directory has 16 spelled Grey and 240 (approx) spelled Gray. So not quite the same as Sparteye's definitive US survey, but very much the same direction.
(And 100 Griffin as I happened to be on the same page - Helen)
Rod
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#26427
04/11/2001 5:16 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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BTW - I think this is a YARTAnd I believe we decided, during your recent hiatus, that complaining about YARTs is a YART.
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#26428
04/11/2001 9:18 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163
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>BTW - I think this is a YART
What pray (perhaps it should be prey?) tell is a YART?
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#26429
04/11/2001 9:35 PM
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Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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What pray (perhaps it should be prey?) tell is a YART?Seizing the opportunity to appear helpful while inflating his own tally of posts, Max replies, Yet Another Rehashed Topic. See also http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/maxq/Jo's_Hints.htm
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#26430
04/11/2001 11:50 PM
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Posts: 508
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Well, the social deviants BYB and of troy aside
They're right aside me - I've also used "grey" all my life! I recognize it as a UKism, but it just feels right to me. Or maybe it's the Rebel in me. If that makes me socially deviant, so be it.
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#26431
04/11/2001 11:51 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163
member
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And I thought it meant Yet Another Riveting Topic.
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#26432
04/12/2001 12:35 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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And I thought it meant Yet Another Riveting Topic.
Let's call "Yet Another Riveting Topic" a YARVT, for surely we can use it as much as YART, to give kudos where kudos are due and thus encourage more YARVTs.
chronist
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#26433
04/12/2001 12:06 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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YARVTGah! Not another one! "I'm not listening..." [humming loudly with fingers in ears e]
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#26434
04/12/2001 1:53 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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For some reason that evades me, I've always taken to using "grey" when I'm referring to emotion or mood, as in "feeling grey" (feeling, sad, feeling blue), and for dismal, as in a "grey day." Generally, I use "gray" when referring to color. It's possible that I may have been instructed to do this by a grammar school teacher in the early grades, but I can't pinpoint it. Does anybody else follow this grey/gray variance?
And, then, of course, there's the song "The Old Grey Mare." Did they mean the horse was feeling blue, or that he was old and gray? (or does "grey," perhaps, have yet another connotation when applying to animals...I seem to remember that slant in answer to a question about the horse in the song title somewhere along the line...?)
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#26435
04/12/2001 3:28 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
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The Old Grey Mare
Don't know how old farm mares feel, but maybe racehorses are different. My wife has a betting system for the rare occasions when we go to the racetrack: If there is a grey horse in the race, she bets it across the board. She does about as well as I do, moneywise at the end of the day, with all my scientific poring over the Racing Form.
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#26436
04/12/2001 5:35 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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YARVT
Gah! Not another one! "I'm not listening..."
[humming loudly with fingers in ears e]
==========================================================
Re: horse-racing, grey or not, somebody here in town saw me coming this morning. We have a few of those electronic
highway signs that are set up to warn of traffic delays ahead (construction at Exit 12, detour at Exit 11 kind of thing). Now--Churchill Downs recently adopted "Go, Baby, Go" as their advertising slogan. (Hey, they didn't ask me!)
So--this morning, the sign I was approaching read, "Whoa,
baby, whoa--leave the racing to the horses". My kids and I
all burst out laughing, because they know me. In the last vehicle I test-drove, the salesman said as I prepared to enter the expressway, "Why don't you see what it will do?"
In the rear-view mirror, I saw both kids take hold of
the grab bars!
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#26437
04/12/2001 6:10 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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One subject that we have missed on this board-- are to my knowledge only briefly touched on, are all the words and terms for gambling--we did touch a pair of words used in UK for a small bet-- but a professional gambler i know, (yes, it it a profession-- he is licenced!) spoke of all the expressions poker had brought into language--many are phrases-- but BYB, since you know a little something-- maybe you can enlighten us with horseracing terms that have moved into the main stream. (me, i don't gamble with money!)
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#26438
04/12/2001 6:35 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
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The "accepted" Canadian spelling is "grey". I looked it up when I was doing my MSc practicum and every second sentence had the word "greyscale" in it. Same sort of thing - I wanted to be consistent.
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#26439
04/13/2001 3:21 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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answer to a question about the horse in the song title somewhere along the line
"The Old Grey Mare,
She ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be ..." (repeat)
Sung occcasionally by really (uppity) good friends after the Happy Birthday song!
wow
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#26440
04/15/2001 3:00 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeah, but... you can't pronounce it (unless you're from Eastern Europe) 
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#26441
04/17/2001 5:05 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In reply to:
One subject that we have missed on this board-- are to my knowledge only briefly touched on, are all the words and terms for gambling-
Here are some terms in general use which arise from gaming:
According to Hoyle
Ace in the hole
Back to square one
Blue chips
Break the ice
Chips are down
Dominoes
Draw the line
Ducks in a row
Four-flusher
Get a break
Hands down
Jackpot
Kingpin
Knuckle down
Leave in the lurch
Off the wall
On a roll
Open and shut
Pass the buck
Play for Keeps
Put up your dukes
Rack up
Rush pell-mell
Shoot the works
Showdown
Stand pat
Start the ball rolling
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#26442
04/18/2001 11:19 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
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When my cat is trying to look inconspicuous, I used to say "I see you, Fru-Fru." This has now become, "I see you Fru-Fru, and I raise you one." Tee hee. 
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#26443
04/18/2001 12:02 PM
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609
addict
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some terms in general use which arise from gaming:
Sparteye, I accept most of your list satisfies the criteria, but I would question a few, some out of ignorance (general may not be so in UK) and genuine curiosity, some out of general cussedness.
What gaming origins do the following have?
Draw the line
Ducks in a row
Rush pell-mell
The only times I have heard "Kingpin" it has been in reference to the pin holding old wooden roof beams together, but I have a vague memory of hang-gliders also using it for what is more commonly known as the "Jesus Bolt".
And I suspect, but cannot prove, that "Open and Shut" comes from courts where the charge book was opened and shut immediately. That would lie well with its current usage. What was your origin?
Rod
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#26444
04/18/2001 2:30 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Gaming origins of --
Draw the line: A game which was the ancestor of tennis involved hitting a ball back and forth across a net, using the players' hands rather than rackets. There were no established courts or play area dimensions, so the game was played on any ol' flat area, across which the players stretched the net. Each player then stepped an agreed distance from the net and drew a line which was the back boundary. From that practice came the concept of "drawing the line" to mean a limit of any kind. (Except: Charles Funk says it arises from the cut of a plowshare across a field to indicate the limit of one's holding)
Ducks in a row: from an ancestor of ten-pin bowling, in which the pins were short and slender, and called duckpins. Setting the pins in rows for the game lead to the meaning of a task completed for "ducks in a row."
Rush pell-mell: Borrowed by the English from the French, the game of pall-mall involved driving a boxwood ball with a mallett, in an attempt to knock the ball through a ring suspended at the end of a long playing surface. The site of one of the playing areas in London became Pall Mall Street. Because Pall Mall was a center of club life and major business houses, the street was always in confusion. Those who hurry about as if bustling along on Pall Mall (pronounced pellmell) came to be rushing pell-mell.
Kingpin: Germans developed a game in which wooden pins formed the target for a rolling ball. The nine pins included one larger than the others, the king pin, which was sometimes decorated with a crown. (The game was altered by the Dutch, which made all the pins uniform and added a tenth to avoid anti-bowling laws) The label "kingpin" survives to apply to one who plays a leading role in an organization. Around here, you are liable to hear it in reference to organized crime.
Open and shut: From Faro, which was highly popular in the 1850s. Standard play of the era included numerous complicated ways to place and raise bets, but to encourage newbies a gambling hall operator simplified the game, and in the simplified version the pot was closed very soon after having been opened. Veterans of the game preferred the older version, and disdained open and shut play. The expression migrated from the gaming tables to name any uncomplicated situation.
Source: Why You Say It, Webb Garrison.
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#26445
04/18/2001 2:39 PM
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Posts: 609
addict
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Thanks Sparteye for the explanations and the reference. I shall keep a look out for that one.
Rod
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#26446
04/18/2001 6:05 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Nice to see you all ante up.
wow
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#26447
04/18/2001 6:29 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yet Another RiVeting Topic...
in order to maintain PoE in all things acronymic, I respectfully submit (by right of primogeniture, or sumtin) that this concept be reconstituted as Yet Another Piquant Topic (YAPT). [and it's pronounceable, ASp!]
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#26448
04/18/2001 6:38 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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right of primogeniture, or sumtin
You realize that, thanks to your boycotting, Jackie has surpassed you.
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#26449
04/18/2001 7:06 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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>thanks to your boycotting, Jackie has surpassed you...
...and the natural order of things has been restored. <blink>
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#26450
04/18/2001 7:23 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>thanks to your boycotting, Jackie has surpassed you...
...and the natural order of things has been restored. <blink>
GRR!
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#26451
04/18/2001 7:43 PM
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Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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While spending many years working with vast lists of computerized names in the casinos and (yeechhh!) telemarketing, the handful that stood out as the oddest included this: Gary GrayYou'd have to go cross-eyed to live with that one! Some parents have no mercy!
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#26452
04/18/2001 7:53 PM
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Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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At our Friday night poker games if someone was bluffing we used to say they were "sandbagging." And a bluffer
was a "sandbagger." I do not know the whys and wherefores of this one.
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#26453
04/18/2001 7:59 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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I always thought that "sandbagging" was rather the opposite of bluffing; i.e., concealing a good hand as opposed to "selling" one that may not be so good.
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#26454
04/19/2001 2:24 AM
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Posts: 4,189
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I always thought "sandbagging" was the opposite of bluffing, i.e. concealing a good hand
Interesting, tsuwm...I can see the term being used in the context of 'hiding a good hand." Perhaps the term took on a different shade of meaning as it made the rounds among different gaming circles? I guess the real question, then, is what was the original intent of the slang term "sandbagging' in realtion to playing poker? Was it "concealing a good hand," "bluffing," or, perhaps, something else? Of course, the history of the term would only date back to the advent of the sandbag (as a flood prevention device, I presume?) . And when and where was it coined?
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#26455
04/19/2001 7:11 AM
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Posts: 609
addict
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re Strange names for kids (or adults come to that)
I toyed with calling our son Edward David Ward. Then he would have been:
Edward
E. D. Ward
Ed Ward
but probably for the best, my wife vetoed the idea. So we called him James Andrew and he got called Jaws at school!
Rod
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#26456
04/19/2001 1:21 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have heard the term used to mean not putting out one's best effort. In a gaming context it would have the connotation of doing so to lull opponents into a false sense of confidence.
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#26457
04/19/2001 1:38 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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I agree with tsuwm, sandbagging in poker is deceiving opponents into thinking you are bluffing, when you have a very good hand. The dictionary says:
>4 [Slang] to deceive (an opponent), as by deliberately playing poorly
The painful surprise the opponents get is compared to being hit with a sandbag.
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#26458
04/19/2001 2:35 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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for what it's worth, here is a poker glossary which looks to be fairly comprehensive: http://www.neo-tech.com/poker/appendixc.html
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