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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
I try to avoid clichés, but often find it difficult. Intensifiers are needed, but the repertoire is much too small.
Clumsy substitutes may be worse than the cliché.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Is a "clumsy substitute" one who's brought on after a player is injured and then proceeds to fumble the ball in front of his/her own goal line in the face of a ravening, slavering pack of opposition players? 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 96
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 96 |
How about "plum" meaning totally? how did that come about? as in (adopts grizzled cowboy drawl) " that boy is plum crazy"
you Americans , such bad-asses!
Merry Christmas from a very wet very windy Blackpool (more glenfiddich needed back in a mo' )
the Duncster
the Duncster
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Dear Dunster,
Now I'm puzzled (nothin' new here). I always thought it was "plumb crazy," which makes sense to me if I think of a plumb line--you know, dropping straight down to the center of gravity with no interruption. tsuwm'll be riding in on his great horse called Lexicon any minute now--I'm can hear him galloping, galloping, galloping....
Plumb Fine Regards,
DubDub
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Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
i think i am with wordwind on plumb (as in lead, the metal) a person who is plumb crazy is so crazy you can't plumb the depth...
plumb, from plumbum, the latin for lead, also gives us plumber..though, now days, not even waste pipes are made with lead.. a plumb, or sometime a plumb bob, a small lead weight, used to measure the depth of lake, or to drop a perfect vertical line.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>i think i am with wordwind on plumb.. crazy...
you guys is plumbful of good notions. the word plumb (often spelt plum), while originally meaning vertical, perpendicular or straight down (rarely straight up), through transferral (hi bill!) has come to mean exactly, directly or precisely (and in US slang becomes an intensive: completely, entirely, absolutely, quite).
[and speaking of plumb lines, contrast them with rhumb lines -- or loxodromic curves.]
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Wow, tsuwm--cool!
The early navigators soon gave up great circle navigation ("orthodromie" en français) as a bad joke when they realised that, when sailing along agreat circle, the bearing changes constantly. They soon decided that sailing along a constant bearing, whilst perhaps taking a little longer, was far simpler. You just measured the bearing on the Mercator's chart, and this was the bearing to follow to go where you wanted to go.
This line of constant bearing is called a Rhumb line. The word "rhumb" (or sometimes rumb and it is the same in French though not very well known) comes from the name of angle measurement representing the "point" on the old fashioned compass cards. There are 32 "rhumbs" in 360 degrees, hence a rhumb is 11 1/4 degrees. From: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~jjjacq/sundry/navrhumb.htmlI didn't look long enough to find a good explanation of loxodromic curves, but take a gander at this title in a list of articles I found: On unsmoothable diffeomorphisms. Bulletin of the American Math Society, vol. 81, p. 746, 1975. tsuwm, do you have an interest in maps, or is this just yet another evidencing of your vast storehouse of knowledge?
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
How about "plum" meaning totally?So then plum pudding is totally pudding? Pure, true, 100%, pudding pudding!? Plumb the depths of that one, will ya? 
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
tsuwm, do you have an interest in maps, or is this just yet another evidencing of your vast storehouse of knowledge?tsuwm is our board's Little Jack Horner, who sat in a corner: every time he sticks in his thumb, he pulls out a plum for us. Thank you, tsuwm!
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