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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Every moning when I perform my march matutinale, and come to places where the sidewalk corner curb has been removed and replaced with a gentle slope, I have to take couple rapid short steps because of gravity assist. I have to festinate. festinate vt., vi. < L festinatus, pp. of festinare, to hurry < IE base *bheres, quick > MIr bras, swift6 [Rare] to hurry; speed adj. I learned the word when I was perhaps ten years old. My father and I were looking out the front window, when an elderly lady on sidewalk had her pace accelerate until she had to head for telephone pole to stop, then slowly accelereated until she came to next telephone pole to keep her from losing her footing. My father told me that she had had the influenza that killed so many towards end of WWI, and had Parkinson's Disease as a residual, of which her involuntary acceleration was a symptom, called festination. And there is the Latin motto: Festina lente. - Make haste slowly.
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,597 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,597 Likes: 1 |
...sometimes referred to as a "festinating gait," meaning it starts slowly and accellerates to become out of control.
Here's a more recent usage of the root:
Earl: (Tolloller or Mountararat - I forget which) (to Lord Chancellor) "This gentleman is seen With a maid of seventeen A-taking of his dolce far niente "sweet nothings" And wonders he'd achieve For he asks us to believe She's his mother - and he's nearly five-and-twenty!"
Lord Chancellor: (to Strephon) "Recollect yourself, I pray, And be careful what you say, As the ancient Romans said festina lente ! For I really do not see How so young a girl can be The mother of a man of five-and-twenty"
-- W S Gilbert, Iolanthe - Act I Finale
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
is that like a "festinating rhythm"?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,597 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,597 Likes: 1 |
I like it!
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,597 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,597 Likes: 1 |
To complete the lyrics, and just because I love Gilbert & Sullivan:
"To say she is his Mother is a bit of utter folly! (Oh, fie, our Strephon is a rogue!) Perhaps his brain is addled and he's very melancholy. (Taradiddle, taradiddle, tol-lol-lay!) I wouldn't say a word that could be reckoned as injurious But to find a mother younger than her son is very curious And that's the kind of Mother that is usually spurious! (Taradiddle, taradiddle, tol-lol-lay!)"
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