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addict
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addict
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We raised both beef and dairy cows, but never heard this word
I suspect that you always had enough grain/food/grass for your cattle then. I've heard this term used a fair bit - particularly when I was growing up in the country. People who lived in town on small blocks of land would often have the horses that their kids had as pets agisted on properties outside of town. My uncle who has a farm in one of the more arid regions of NSW occasionally agists his animals onto the property of a neighbour, who doesn't have animals, and pays a fee to do this (often in kind, rather than specific monetary amount - the barter system still operates in the country to a degree).
In Oz, the term 'agistment' implies more than just feeding, it includes the pasturing as well. On checking my facts, I find that the Macquarie Australian Dictionary says:
agist
// verb (t) 1. to take in and feed or pasture (livestock) for payment. 2. to lay a public burden, as a tax, on (land or its owner). [Middle English, from Old French ŕ to + giste resting-place]
--agistment, noun
--agistor, noun
Hmmm... interesting!
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Carpal Tunnel
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...the term "sinister," from heraldry, also has to do with the left - and also has bad connotations in modern language
I seem to recall that way back when, as the Spanish language was evolving from Latin and "dexter" (L. right) became Spanish "derecho," there was sufficient unhappiness with the evil connotations of "sinister" that it was rejected entirely. In seeking a more neutral word for "left" they borrowed from the Basque language up in the Pyrenees mountains, whence the present "izquierda."
Any linguists still participating who can refine my recollection?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sinister got its bad reputation from necessity of using left hand to perform task now performed by toilet paper. Remember the story about the Roman captured by Etruscans, who demonstrated his courage by
holding his right hand in a flame until it was destroyed. He acquired nickname that became added to family
name: "Scaevola" which literally means "shitwing". In those days the left hand had a bad reputation.
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Joined: Feb 2002
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2002
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"dexter" (L. right)
and to be "dexterous" is seen as a good thing....good for the Spaniards for trying to be fair.
Unca Bill, I did NOT KNOW that disgusting detail! but now it makes me wonder when toilet paper came along? o, and bidets....I know people used to use pages from the Sears catalogue in the dunny/outhouse - when did rolls of toilet paper come to be? and does the bidet predate the roll of loo paper?
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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Carpal Tunnel
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One for Wordwind, the hippopotamiphile:
Behemoth (Hebrew). The hippopotamus; once thought to be the rhinoceros. (See Job xl. 15.)
“Behold! in plaited mail,
Behemoth rears his head.”
Thomson: Summer, 709, 710.
The word is generally, but incorrectly, pronounced Behemoth; but Milton, like Thomson, places the
accent on the second syllable.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Belfry A military tower, pushed by besiegers against the wall of a besieged city, that missiles may be
thrown more easily against the defenders. Probably a church steeple is called a belfry from its
resemblance to these towers, and not because bells are hung in it. (French, beffroi, a watch-tower, Old
French, berfreit, belefreit, from German, berg-frit, bergen, to protect, frit [vride], a place fenced in for
security.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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“Beacons were lighted upon crags and eminences; the bells were rung backwards in the
churches; and the general summons to arm announced an extremity of danger.”- Sir W. Scott.
The Betrothed. chap. iii.
How in hell can you ring a bell backwards?
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Bevy A bevy of ladies. A throng or company; properly applied to roebucks, quails, and pheasants. Timid
gregarious animals, in self-defence, go down to a river to drink in bevies or small companies. Ladies, from
their timidity, are placed in the same category (Italian, bevere, to drink)
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Bićum in rhetoric, means converting the proof into a disproof. As thus: That you were the murderer is
proved by your being on the spot at the time. Reply: Just the contrary, if I had been the guilty person
most certainly I should have run away. (Greek, biaion.)
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Bias The weight in bowls (bowling balls) which makes them deviate from the straight line; hence any favourite idea or
pursuit, or whatever predisposes the mind in a particular direction.
Bowls are not now loaded, but the bias depends on the shape of the bowls. They are flattened on one
side, and therefore roll obliquely.
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