#46659
11/10/2001 5:05 PM
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On a Lady's Girdle "give me what this girdle bound, take all the rest the sun goes 'round" PS. A slight misquote. See http://netpoets.com/classic/068003.htm
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#46660
11/10/2001 5:29 PM
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Allure - Walkway along the top of a wall.
It would be interesting to know how this word acquired its current meaning.
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#46661
11/10/2001 5:45 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bill:
interestingly, there is only a tenuous connection, if any at all, between the verb allure, meaning to entice, and the noun allure, meaning a place to walk. The latter is from an earlier word alure, an old French word for a gait or a way of walking. There's a connection to the word alley as well as to aisle.
the verb allure comes from the term lure, used in falconry, and when I saw that my mind immediately lept to alure as a high place on which to lure a falcon. Doesn't seem to be the case.
TTF
TEd
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#46662
11/10/2001 5:47 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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wwh: Jes' 'cuz I'm procratinating, here's a broad speculation with n'er a twit of truth in it...
To lure is to attrack and trap.
So, the allure was that walkway up high where some whistler would whistle a happy tune. The enemy would sneak up to take a shot at the decoy on the wall, and kaboom! Down would fall the machicolations and machinations and whatever those Machiavellian missiles and hot metals you and tsuwm were writing about.
Sometimes they'd even let a damsel strut on the allure with a cone on her head from which a wispy veil would wrestle seductively with the wind. The sneaky rascals, intoxicated with her seeming beauty, would creep up and kaboom!!! Down would fall again the molten metals and even some offal from the garderobe.
Over time, the defense-turned-offense purpose of the allure got all mixed up with that damsel, and the verb was born.
To allure became, not only to pull into machicolations, but also to pull on the heart strings.
All's fair in love and war, and sometimes the two become one.
WW
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#46663
11/10/2001 5:59 PM
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Hmmmmm, Ted, there would be some provocative gaits that would be alluring and luring up there on that allure, yes?
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#46664
11/10/2001 6:15 PM
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Alas, in those days they did not have primrose paths. I used to think "down the garden path" meant preliminary to seduction. Interestingly, apparently this is not necessarily so; http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/3/messages/256.html
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#46665
11/11/2001 12:38 AM
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This reminds me of the occasion when Captain Uhuru was told to go straight to headquarters without stopping off for a scheduled R&R on the planet Allure, which was noted for the sexual favors regularly bestowed upon starship crews.
When the crew found out, they were ready to mutiny. Uhuru explained that he would have to put it into the log, at which the crew responded, "Tour Allure, Uhuru, tour Allure and lie."
TEd
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#46666
11/11/2001 1:09 AM
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Dear TEd: without spoiling your Irish lullaby, I remember Uhura, an Afro-American beauty, who had beaucoup allure. I watched only a few Star-Trek programs. When did the lady undergo gender change?
That alone would have been grounds for mutiny .
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#46667
11/11/2001 7:45 AM
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Bill:
As you can tell I am even less a trekkie than art thou.
TTF
TEd
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#46668
11/11/2001 10:57 PM
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Dud-dub tells us, "Sometimes they'd even let a damsel strut on the allure ... seductively." Is said damsel termed the "allurette", as in the old french song, "allurette, gentile alleurette"?
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#46669
11/11/2001 11:06 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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I remember Uhuru, an Afro-American beauty, who had beaucoup allure.
a few points:
1) As I recall, Lt. Uhuru was notable for having beaucoup allures.
2) Bill, granted that the Lt. was of the feminine ilk, but why would you consider that said fact renders inapt TEd's reference to her wishing a sojourn on the planet Allure?
3)I believe the name "Uhuru" was chosen as being the swahili word for something-or-other. Can anyone help?
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#46670
11/11/2001 11:21 PM
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Dear Keiva: In early Star-Trek episodes, there was feminine Uhura. You have changed spelling.
In some of the sites I found, there was Uhuru apparently male in later episodes. Maybe the lady got nice and went up on her price, and a bargain basement male got her job.
"Uhuru" is Swahili for "freedom".
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#46671
11/11/2001 11:37 PM
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Well, Keiva, I'll be an ayleurette if I can twirl fire, an obsession of mine from high school days...
Oh, that was majorette... Forget it.
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#46672
11/12/2001 5:41 PM
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TEd
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#46673
11/12/2001 7:17 PM
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veteran
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veteran
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Wordwind: What about the portable towers that attackers moved into place against the castle walls to bridge the allure? They must have a name. Those towers turned the tables on the allure ... making them a whole lot less 'alluring', wouldn't you say?
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#46674
11/12/2001 7:31 PM
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>They must have a name.
were they called anything other than 'siege towers'?
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#46675
11/12/2001 7:35 PM
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#46676
11/12/2001 7:51 PM
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I read somewhere that HumptyDumpty represented such a siege tower being overthrown by defenders.
I had it a bit garbled
t is believed that Humpty Dumpty was the name given to a narrow-barreled squat cannon mounted on top of
Saint Mary's Church, near the Balkerne Gate and Jumbo water tower, as part of the town's defences. Humpty
Dumpty received a direct hit by a cannon ball fired from Parliamentarian forces, lead by Sir Thomas Fairfax.
He was attempting to breach the town's defences in pursuit of its Royalist captors, lead by Sir Charles Lucas
and Sir George Lisle.
Falling to the ground, along with a large section of the church's tower, Humpty Dumpty lay in pieces
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#46677
11/12/2001 9:04 PM
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actually, my favorite room of a castle is the oubliette --sometimes i think every house should have one.. a little room for forgetting.. some excavation of 'castles' in england found evidence that one oubliette was in use right up to 1830! Now days they would be perfect for door to door vendors! too bad we can't confine telemarketers to them too!
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#46678
11/12/2001 9:26 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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With no sanitary facilities the oubliettes had to have an unforgettable aroma. And dear Helen, be sure you have the key. Indefinite droit du seigneur might become tiresome.
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#46679
11/12/2001 10:58 PM
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be sure i have the key? from what i know about oubliettes, they didn't need a key.
these little rooms of forgetting, of oblivon, were dudgeons of the worst kind. a small room, (usually in a remote part of the castle) entered, when someone stepped on a trap door, that let them fall, 8 to 20 feet into a small room. even if they didn't break legs or arms in the fall, there was no way out, no window, nothing.. (sometimes, to make them more effective, the floor was covered with metal spikes.. the trap door was sealed, the floor covered with carpet, and everyone just "forgot" . in one oubliette, among the many bones was found a coin dated 1830, and a man's gold watch. mind you, they could have just fallen in at some time, san the owner.. but any information about the room was forgotten..
an oubliette was not like the gardarobe! it was much worse!
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#46680
11/12/2001 10:59 PM
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What about the portable towers that attackers moved into place against the castle walls to bridge the allure? Plutarch
Now this description is food for thought about how and of what such devices were wrought...
Light materials? Pine? And how high? At least it sounds as though the movers would have had some protection if they moved from within...
Hope to read more about this. It makes me think of Macbeth and that movable woods...
wwh: Fascinating reading about Humpty Dumpty the Dumped Hump of a Cannon...
Best regards,
Wumpty
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#46681
11/13/2001 12:51 AM
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About attacking castles. I wonder if Shakespeare in MacBeth:"he will never be defeated until Great
Birnam wood shall come against him to High Dunsinane Hill" may not be first mention in literature of camouflage.
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#46682
11/13/2001 4:32 AM
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In reply to:
first mention in literature of camouflage
That honour surely goes to the contraption which put a stop to the little fracas our esteemed New Yorker was the cause of.
Bingley
Bingley
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#46683
11/13/2001 2:29 PM
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Dear Bingley: you baffle me. Since Shakespeare antedated New York considerably, how could any New Yorker claim priority? And I can think of no New Yorker who could be a candidate.
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#46684
11/13/2001 3:18 PM
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wwh: Hint: ofTroy and Hint: Ancient Wooden Pantomime Horse containing an army of actors....
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#46685
11/13/2001 4:13 PM
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Dear WW: If you are suggesting the Trojan Horse was an example of camouflage, that seems to be stretching the term pretty far. Camel flagging may be older than Macbeth, but I don't remember mention of it. I'm not even sure why it was important for the numbers of besiegers to be concealed, except to be a hint the weird women had been deceitful.The options of the defenders were limited, they could not send for re-inforcements. The basic purpose of camouflage is to escape detection. but can be extended to deception. such as building phony targets for enemy airforce to bomb. The Trojan Horse has some similarity to that
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#46686
11/13/2001 6:00 PM
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>Indefinite droit du seigneur might become tiresome.
Once a king, always a king, but once a knight is enough.
And an egg a day is an oeuf.
TEd
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#46687
11/14/2001 2:14 AM
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It was the Trojan horse I was thinking of. But then after I posted I started having doubts about whether it was camouflage or just a deception and what the difference would be. And what is camel flagging?
Bingley
Bingley
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#46688
11/14/2001 2:56 AM
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Dear Bingley: "Camel flag" was WWI American soldier attempt to read French camouflage. Hors d'oevres were horse doovers. They thought "elle est chérie" referred to an anatomical structure.
After thinking a while, it came to me that the Trojan Horse was a form of decoy, a deception to entice enemy into danger or make some other error. Israelis used unmanned planes as decoys to entice Syrian ground-to-air missile sites to fire, revealing their location to Israeli planes. The Soviets dropped toys for Afghan children to pick up, which then exploded. The word "decoy" has come a long way from Dutch word for trap for ducks.
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