#56624
02/13/2002 2:49 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Today's Word, "fetor" suggests a coinage: "Fetort". A retort uttered by person afflicted with fetor oris.
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#56625
02/14/2002 3:23 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Can you recommend a good prescription mouthwash, Dr. Bill? 
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#56626
02/14/2002 2:20 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Dear WO'N: None of them do me much good.
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#56627
02/14/2002 2:29 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Dear WO'N: Imagine what my friend Dottie would have done to me if I told her hair was nitid!
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#56628
02/14/2002 3:07 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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told her hair was nitid!
Really! I can't imagine a word sounding much less like its meaning! Even if you know how to spell it (it just occurred to me that it *sounds like knitted).
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#56629
02/14/2002 4:21 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Faldage: But what if Dottie thought I was saying her hair was full of nits?
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#56630
02/14/2002 4:35 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,803 |
Dottie thought ... her hair was full of nits
Hadn't thought of that, Dr. Bill. Just makes our case against the word that much stronger!
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#56631
02/14/2002 5:59 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 10,542 |
you guys are just nitpicking again.
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#56632
02/14/2002 6:24 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Dear tsuwm: Do you need our services? Do you have mechanised dandruff?
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#56633
02/14/2002 7:15 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
OOO--Do you have mechanised dandruff?
Animated dandruff would be, um, interesting, (undesirable) but understandable.. but mechanised? made out of machinery? automated? the idea of mechanised dandruff makes the animated kind seem desirable!
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#56634
02/14/2002 8:32 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
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#56635
02/18/2002 2:39 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you
sockdologising old man-trap."
Booth fired his gun at that precise moment to muffle the
loud noise of his shot with the guffaws from the audience,
and quietly escaped. ]
I remember reading that Booth jumped from the presidential box down to the stage, landing badly so that he broke an ankle, but managed to get out the back door.
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#56636
02/18/2002 4:47 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I remember reading that Booth jumped from the presidential box down to the stage, landing badly so that he broke an ankle, but managed to get out the back door.
As a recall, the who treated Booth's ankle, was probably unaware of his patient's identity, but was nonetheless tried and convicted as a co-conspirator in the assassination. His name was Dr. Mudd, and I recall hearing that this is the source of the phrase "his name is mud".
Sounds suspiciously like an urban legand, but it will be easy enough to LIU this evening.
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#56638
02/18/2002 11:32 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 4,189 |
from http://www.word-detective.com/100297.html: Mud on the superhighway.
Dear Word Detective: I've searched the entire World Wide Web looking for the origin of the
phrase "Your name will be mud." I think it might have come from the name of the doctor who
treated John Wilkes Booth (Dr. Mudd, I presume). -- Jerry McFadyen, via the Internet.
Searched the whole web, eh? Well, by now I'm sure that you've come to the same conclusion
that I reached a while back, namely that if you're looking for solid, useful information on the
Internet, you're barking up the wrong medium. There are exceptions, to be sure, but in
general trying to do serious research on the web is akin to asking a housecat for help with
your homework. Someone needs to explain this to Al Gore.
Thank heavens for books, therefore, especially ones such as "Devious Derivations," written
by Hugh Rawson and published by Crown. Mr Rawson devotes an entire page in his book to
the theory you have evidently heard: that the phrase "Your name will be mud" is connected
somehow to the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd who treated President Abraham Lincoln's assassin,
John Wilkes Booth. Doctor Mudd may or may not have been in on the 1865 assassination
conspiracy with Booth, who had broken his leg escaping from the scene of his crime. In any
case, Mudd was convicted of conspiracy in the trial that followed, and his name, to the
general public, certainly became "mud" in the sense of the phrase -- despised and reviled.
But Doctor Mudd's name is certainly no more than an interesting coincidence, for it cannot
have been the source of the phrase. "Mud" had already been in use for more than 200 years,
since at least 1708, as a slang term for a fool. According to Christine Ammer, in her book
"Have A Nice Day -- No Problem!" (a very fine dictionary of cliches published by Plume),
"mud" was commonly applied in the 19th century British Parliament to any member who lost
an election or otherwise disgraced himself.The Phrase Finder also validates this: http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/meanings/424000.html
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#56639
02/19/2002 4:04 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
President Harding is credited with coining "bloviate". I know of another word he is apparently erroneously credited with having coined. Can you remember it? http://www.thirdlion.com/ATM23.html You have to scroll down a ways.
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#56640
02/19/2002 6:53 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 10,542 |
H.L. Mencken said of W.G. Harding: "He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."
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#56641
02/19/2002 8:14 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear tsuwm: I wonder what Curmudgeon Mencken would have said about that paragraph if someone else had written it. It seems to have a bit of overkill.
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#56642
02/19/2002 8:29 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>that paragraph
I thought he was just speaking generally.
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#56643
02/19/2002 8:34 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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True, dr. bill, but Mencken was not noted for underkill. And there is a time-honored tradition of lampooning presidential speech. (Wonder how many of our USn's are old enough to recall Vaughn Meeder's First Family album?)
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#56644
02/19/2002 11:06 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
it reminds me of ... college yellsHey!GO SPARTANS! GO BUCKEYES! 
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#56645
02/20/2002 2:02 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Tonstant weader fwowed up. Gate me no gates. This is one gate too far.
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#56646
02/20/2002 2:13 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 4,757 |
one gate too far.
Wordgate - a post too far?
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#56647
02/20/2002 2:19 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Billingsgate to Watergate.
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#56648
02/20/2002 2:26 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Irony bars me from continuing to fence with you, Bill. [unwunk]
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#56649
02/20/2002 2:26 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Barbara Billingsgate?
Seriously, for a nonce cliché -gate sure has legs. We're getting on 30 years this one has been going. Everytime a new one pops up the Cliché Police pule and micturate; when the tears and ashes clear another one pops up. Linguistic Whack-A-Mole®.
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#56650
02/20/2002 2:39 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Irony bars for a cage for you.
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#56651
02/20/2002 3:24 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,803 |
Irony bars do not a prison make
nor emoticons a door...
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#56652
02/20/2002 5:01 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Ah, to mitigate or litigate, that is the question.
"Irony bars", but a gate allows one to pass beyond the fencing.
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#56653
02/21/2002 2:42 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Interests me even less than pocket pool.
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#56654
02/22/2002 3:04 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
stocious = drunk, intoxicated
Praps. But I think it goes beyond that.
edit: [unwink]
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#56655
02/22/2002 3:27 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
The Gershwins and their collaborators were so gifted it is tempting to suppose there is something funny about this name other than just its absurd sound. Perhaps a built in flatus control?
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#56656
02/22/2002 4:09 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Not to mention the separate credits for lyrics and libretto.
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#56657
02/22/2002 5:01 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Faldage: I wondered about that too. I am so ignorant of music that I thought there was some subtle distinction. In the musical might there not have been spoken text and stage directions that would be called the "libretto" with the lyrics a subset of the whole?
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#56658
02/22/2002 5:47 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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spoken text and stage directions
I think that's what they're getting at Dr. Bill. Looks like the libretto is everythang but the singing words. Not sure about the stage directions, though.
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#56659
02/24/2002 9:25 PM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 477
addict
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addict
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 477 |
A purposeless incompetent in public office.
What can I say? Welcome to Oz... (interesting also that we have the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting coming up here soon - possibly a few too many throttlebottoms in one place at one time).  Cynic? Me ... never!
Hev
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#56660
02/28/2002 5:05 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In Shakespeare's Henry V, before the curtain goes up, the chorus on the proscenium gives about twenty lines about the problems of presenting the play. I don't know why, but I have always remembered this one line:
" Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? "
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#56661
03/04/2002 5:28 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't care for "philomath". We already have "polymath". The aftermath may be "philopath".
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#56662
03/05/2002 5:27 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Dear Dr. Bill,
But, but, but...philomath and polymath are not the same! That "love" bit in the philomath definition is a crucial distinction. I have an uncle who can only be described as a philomath. The man eats, sleeps, and breathes learning. (He's retired, but he's always been this way. Now he just has more time.) He knows all the libraries in the city, and the specialties of each. He watches televised university classes for fun. He has a complicated system to keep track of which library books are due when. He loves to argue with you over something he's just learned about. So at least in my family, philomath is a very necessary and useful word!
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#56663
03/05/2002 6:32 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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We have philosopher which once meant the same thing. And only philomaths. but not all, can become polymaths.
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