An etymological book tells me that the expression "apple pie order" comes from "a corrupted form of a French label for neatly folded linen," but does not tell me the French phrase. Can one of you with command of French hazzard a guess for me? Thanks.
The phrase cap a pie (head to foot) springs to mind. How it relates to folded linen is beyond me.
Ha! Haven't folded the sheets for dear old Mom lately, have ya' naughty boy!
{Mumbling to self : These kids, always shluffing off on the chores .... asking kids "Who was your last maid?" mumble mumble, "darn fitted bottom sheets!"}
wow
Don' know how easy ya got it. When I was a kid we had to get up and walk all the way across the room just to change channels on the Tellyvision set. In the snow and sleet. And it was uphill both ways.
So, wow, you saying you take the head end of the sheet and put it to the foot end?
you saying you take the head end of the sheet and put it to the foot end?
Center fold first then bottom to top. The resulting center crease makes it easy to see center of sheet when making bed Then, when taking a sheet off shelf having all hems togther eliminates trying to find the top and bottom of the sheets.
wow
From puff-pastry? Esp., with an apple filling, for example, (good) danish.
Puff pastry is made by folding and refolding dough, putting butter inbetween the layers. These layers multiply geometrically until, in the end, there are up to several thousand of them. The folding must be done carefully and neatly, or else the butter will run through and spoil the dough. Thus a French apple pastry, or pie(?), might be a confection involving neat folds, like neatly folded linens.
Center fold first then bottom to top. The resulting center crease makes it easy to see center of sheet when making bed Then, when taking a sheet off shelf having all hems togther eliminates trying to find the top and bottom of the sheets.
Et Viola! Capple pie!
Why do you need to see the center of the sheet when you're making the bed? Just take one fitted corner and hook it on an appropriate corner and go from there. Top sheet you just flang out till it lands more or less on the bed and blankets over that. Scrumble then around when you climb in at night. Depending on who you with they gone get all disscrumblfied right quick anyways.
Depending on who you with they gone get all disscrumblfied right quick anyways.Thus you spake to a widow woman?
A 72-year-old one at that!
Harumph
Guess I am just following Mother's directions for the flat sheets. I like a neatly made bed ... military influences in the family?
Of course (fluffing up feathers emoticon) I do not expect others to conform to my high standards.
Whatever fluffs your down quilt!
wow
"nappes plices" is probably the term you're looking for
from
http://theatlantic.com/unbound/corby/ck970114.htm:
"Apple-pie order
A proper chef always keeps her kitchen in apple-pie order: spoons and forks do not fraternize wildly in the cutlery drawer, lids do not wander from their containers, salt shakers do not plummet into the crevice between oven and wall. Such a compulsion for culinary organization is known as apple-pie order, an idiom that may have grown out of how apple pies, in the good old days, were made by carefully arranging apple slices in a highly stylized, vertical pattern (which was then hidden under a crust of dough). Alternatively, the apple pie part of the idiom may have originated as an English corruption of the French phrase nappes plices, meaning folded linen, or as an English corruption of the French phrase cap-a-pie, meaning head to foot (Shakespeare uses this idiom when he has Horatio describe Hamlet's ghostly father as armed cap-a-pie): both French phrases -- nappes plices and cap-a-pie -- are suggestive of minute attention to detail. Whatever its origin, apple-pie order was first recorded in English in the late eighteenth century."
So you're 72 and widowed-- but your not dead-- you're grown up enough to share your bed with whomever you chose! ---
Its strange how folding linen is one the very few things i do like my mother-- and am rigid about-- I taught my kids how to fold towels and sheets-- and warned them this was not to be triffled with! My ex mother in law didn't understand how i could be so unruffled when my kids did trendy things (my daughter shaved half of all her hair off, my son dyed his hair turquoise blue) even my kids had trouble understanding" Why?"-- but learn to fold sheets as I was taught!
Et French horn!
Some folks has one o' them thar furrin duvet thangs so they don't have to worry 'bout no disscrumblefication™.*
--------
*Faldage Works, GmbH, SA. All rights reserved.
nappes plices
My memory (and looking it up in the dictionary again), would suggest "nappes plies" plus accents. Or is that where the "c" came from. "pli" a fold, pleat; "plier" to fold; and (useful this one) "plisser" to screw up!
And no one has mentioned "Apple Pie Bed" yet, or is that term not known in US? If not, (and even if!) it refers to a sheet being folded half way down the bed so the two ends look like top and bottom sheet. Of course the poor unfortunate who tries to get into bed has to remake the bed, or darn the holes made pushing with their feet. The "folded linen" origin seems pretty good for that one.
Rod Ward
In the US that favorite camp trick is known as "short-sheeting" the bed. Much less colorful, but just as fun...
And this is probably another example of a wandering "n" from "a" to "an" changing the form of the word. "A nappe plie" ==> "An app plie" => "An apple pie".
"A naranje" => "An orange" (by memory). Other examples ?? or is this a YART?
Rod Ward
is this a YART?No, it's a NYART (Not Yet...)
napron > apron, nadder > adder, uncle > nuncle, eke-name > nick-name
Noakes < atten Oakes (at them Oakes), with dative of "the"
so also Rea < atter Ea (at the river)
I think naranja > laranja in Mediterranean language(s), not sure in which exactly, possibly Occitan, which was then re-analysed as l-aranja, then aranja was possibly assimilated to the town of Orange in southern France. The OED would give you the route; but the reanalysis took place before it was borrowed into English, I think.
My beloved's children introduced a new word "ron" for other drivers, deducing its existence from the fact that Mummy kept complaining about more rons.
My beloved's children introduced a new word "ron" for other drivers, deducing its existence from the fact that Mummy kept complaining about more rons.
Being one, I got the more rons, but could you or rod please clue me in on the rest? [trulykon]
Thanks
Ro
d asks:
is this a YART?IMNSHO expecting strangers and newbies to Search for every question they wish to bring up before bringing it up to avoid the wrath of the oldbies is unrealistic. The day of everyone's been here since the beginning are over.
The preceding message has been brought to you courtesy of Faldage Works, GmbH, SA. Opinions expressed in this comment are not necessarily those of AWADtalk or any of its employees or associates.
The days of everyone's having been here since the beginning are over.
----------------------------------------
Sic transit gloria mundi (she said, tongue in cheek and worried about quoting correctly (?))
I have no objections to re-hashing topics... probably because the search function leaves me confused and less enlightened than before I started searching. And since I read in flat mode the threaded mode is a Great and Glorious Mystery to me... never can successfully navigate through a threaded thread ... too may titles all the same.
Besides, I think the newcomers to the Board often have much new to offer on any subject, whether discussed before or not. And if a discussion bores ... one can just skip it!
Happy YARTing, one and all, see you 'round the campus!
wow
wow: Sic transit gloria mundi (she said, tongue in cheek and worried about quoting correctly (?)
Worry not good Gloria, a spot of dramamine will allay those odd rumblings.
a spot of dramamine will allay those odd rumblingsOne Dramamine and I am out like a light for six hours!
(Hmmmmmm, she mused, is Faldage suggesting I should take a tablet for that very reason, giving others a chance to post)
Fat chance!
wow
Sic transit gloria mundi
Faldage knows the meaning of this: Gloria Mundi threw up on the streetcar.
training kids
So if you hope your offspring will turn out to have nice neat habits, this consists of high-apple-in-the-sky hopes?
Don't know what age you have attained in this karmic cycle, Helen, but if you are as old as WOW and I, you might remember seeing Eleanor Roosevelt singing (if you could call it that) this song on TV (Ed Sullivan Show, I believe) to support Adlai Stevenson.
Well BYB-- I don't care how they fold their linens in their own homes-- or if they even use Faldage's easy attitude-- but in my house-- if they are staying over as guests-- they have learned to do it my way!
and actually, my daughter is more fanatical than I am about many more things-- but my son is more easy going.
In reply to:
IMNSHO expecting strangers and newbies to Search for every question they wish to bring up before bringing it up to avoid the wrath of the oldbies is unrealistic. The day of everyone's been here since the beginning are over.
Thank you, Faldage. I'm sure the other latecomers have tried, as have I, to search for prior discussions on certain topics in vain attempts to avoid the cry of the dreaded YART. But, I find that tracking things down through the search function can be enormously difficult, and many times I have been unsure whether a topic has already been addressed. I appreciate your tolerance.
A balance will be maintained... just as Yarts become Ayarts (both "almost yet" and "already yet").
This is not a "chat" room and truly eliminates (thank...) the possibility because it is not "real" time. All one has (some more than others) is the sense of history and the "over 2222" different versions of it. This, coupled with "the amount of posts that the "audience" can support" factor, should and usually does push the sense of "shorter" posts (...help me if I miss a week). It can't remove the context for any past or present topic (be they just crossing over the same word) and shouldn't impose reserve from either: a "newcomer" (nothing late about) worrying about unknowingly YARTing (search this!
), or even "Addicts-Pooh Bahs" to participate with a YART saving (and time saving) link (well, time saving for us YARTers anyway
.
All in good fun, of course!
If I had the energy, the time and the motivation, I'd find out how often YARTs have been discussed on the Board. But I haven't any of those things so I won't.
I vote that we either (a) make it a rule that if you say it's a YART then you always include the reference to the thread the original topic was in, or (b) you change the definition of YART to "Yet Another Rethreaded Topic".
Whichever, I have no problem with YARTs but I DO have a problem with the constant references to them!
And that's the last thing I have to say on the topic of rehashed topics. Until next time.
CK - Thanks, and as usual, well focused and ...out of my mouth.
I, also, hereby, with this statement, to the best of my ability (or lack thereof), promise to not cry YART, insinuate YARTing, or make anyone a nervous "wreck"
about the possibility of YARTing until the next time I do it unknowingly!
Enough!
Don't like Yarts?
Discussions of Yarts?
Making Yarts?
Annoyed by Yarts?
Get over it already!
Life is short -- move on.
wow