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Posted By: Max Quordlepleen . - 02/24/02 06:43 PM
Posted By: Keiva Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/24/02 07:16 PM
Each version is used here, but to my ear crematorium is far more familiar.

The headings in the local business-listing phone book are crematories and pet crematories. However, the names of individual companies listed use the term crematorium slightly more often than crematory. So too, google gives slightly more hits for crematorium than for crematory.



Posted By: belligerentyouth Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/24/02 07:35 PM
I agree that crematory is the word less commonly used. In my eyes either would be fine really considering they both have the sound root - but if one prefectly good version existed first (i.e. crematorium), then the other is utterly superfluous .... welcome to English.

Posted By: wwh Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/24/02 08:42 PM
Another vice versa. The families are burned up, not the deceased.

My dictionary gives only "crematory". The Latinate ending is a fad, as in "lubritorium"

Posted By: belMarduk Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/24/02 09:43 PM
I have never heard the word crematory in English here, only crematorium.

It is a crématoire in French though - which would translate directly into crematory. Curiouser & curiouser.

Posted By: jmh Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/24/02 11:29 PM
All the top 60 google hits for Crematory are USA. I dind't look further down the list. Many of the top 60 google hits for Crematorium are UK, Australia, New Zealand and Netherlands. The BBC site seems to use Crematorium so that must be the official UK line. I'm pretty sure that I have heard Crematory mentioned but probably never written.

Posted By: Keiva Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 02:53 AM
I will bet a silk pajama that crematory arose, or at least is frequently used, to euphemistically substitute an unfamiliar word for a familiar but unpleasant one.

Posted By: wwh Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 03:05 AM
A "Crematorium" is a container for Cremo Cigars. They had a slogan "Spit is a horrid word, but it's worse on the end of your cigar." Cigars used to be made by tubercular hags who licked the wrapper leaf to make it fit snugly around the core. YUM, YUM. Incidentally, a large part of the wrapper leaves were grown in New England, where special barns limited the amount of sunshine, to make leaf grow slowly without prominent veins.

Posted By: Geoff Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 03:38 AM
I'm not the brightest buld in the house, but in all my 57 years I had NEVER seen "crematory" until this present story hit the papers.

In seeking a synonym for "cremate,", I thought of "immolate," but upon looking it up learned that to immolate means to sprinkle with holy grits, then sacrifice, as by fire. HOLY GRITS?
Another serving of Soylent Green, anyone?


Posted By: Bobyoungbalt Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 05:09 AM
I have this theory that 'crematory' was invented by the print-media to get around the necessity of having to deal with a Latin plural in case anyone had to write about crematoria. Maybe they were trying, for once, to avoid pissing off us purists who are still bemoaning the fact that 'condominiums' has entirely replaced the correct 'condominia', along with other similar horrors.

Posted By: RhubarbCommando Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 11:16 AM
This may be a time-and-usage thing.
In the '40s and 50s, in Britain (London area) the term "crematory" was very common; these days, it is very rarely (possibly never) used here. Certainly, national news reports always use the second form so I don't think it is a North/South thing over here.

Second thoughts: [/b;ue]
My guess would be that "crematorium" sounds rather more up-market - the Latinate ending adds "class" to the whole dreary proceedings.
Posted By: Bean Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 11:41 AM
We took a course about death in grade eleven. (Great subject for cheerful young teens, eh?) And I never heard anything but "crematorium".

Posted By: of troy Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 01:08 PM
Re:a large part of the wrapper leaves were grown in New England, where special barns limited the amount of sunshine, to make leaf grow slowly without prominent veins.


the barns were for curing the leaves..and the are a particular design with vented sides. (maybe one of the southern members knows the name for the siding.)

the acutal field were covered with gauze-- or something about that weight. heaver then netting or cheese cloth, white, the field were wrapped up like gifts! tops and sides!

They were all along the connecicut river valley, (now one big strip mall and Interstate 91) when i was a child, it was all tobacco. I suppose they grew along other river valleys, too.

Tobacco was also grown all along the Bronx river valley, and the Bronx Botanital gardens has an old mill that has been made into a food court.. its not an old flour mill, but a snuff mill.. to grind the local grown tobacco into snuff.

Posted By: Geoff Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 01:45 PM
'condominiums' has entirely replaced the correct 'condominia', along with other similar horrors.

Condom - in - ium Sounds like a place where prophylactics are in use. Are these places brothels?

Posted By: of troy Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 02:46 PM
you mean you all don't just use condo's or co-op's?

i think 50% of all NY would have to guess that a condominia or even a condomimium is a the same as condo! same with coopperative apartments! many here are called "Mitchel-Lamma's" from a tax law that helped get them built.

and Geoff-- codnom are not an issue in NY condo's-- large percentage of NY condo's are the blue haired crowd!

Posted By: Keiva Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 04:15 PM
From a real-estate point of view a condo and a co-op are very different things. In the former you own your unit; in the latter you are a shareholder in a corporation that owns the entire co-op building.

Thus only the former gives you an "ownership" directly akin to the classic ownership of separate plot of land, with established rules that have developed as to precisely what rights that "ownership" means.

[P.S. And an attorney will have much more work, and a much higher fee, for converting a building to co-op rather than to condo.]
Posted By: boronia Post deleted by boronia - 02/25/02 06:31 PM
Posted By: Keiva Re: Crematory? Um... - 02/25/02 06:38 PM
boronia, my misread -- you're correct.
Helen, sorry. Have edited.
Posted By: jmh Re: Condos and Co-ops - 02/25/02 07:00 PM
We have neither condos or co-ops.

We have flats.

Estate agents sometimes sell apartments but we still call them flats. Some are leasehold (99yrs usually), effectively owner-occupied, with either an external landlord holding the freehold or a share in a separate company which owns the freehold. Some operate on a landlord-tenant basis with a private landlord, some are owned by the local authority and leased to tenants, some are owned by housing associations and leased to tenants.
Posted By: Wordwind Creameries - 02/25/02 10:19 PM
Tangent alert!

We used to have a creamery here in Richmond. There was a huge statue of a big glass bottle of milk outside the creamery. Really nice place to have a sandwich. Now it's closed along with some of the other old-fashioned places that gave Richmond some sweetness: Mrs. Morton's Tea Room and the Miller & Rhodes Tea Room, which was very cool with tables covered with white linen table cloths and Eddie Weaver at the organ playing anything you could name.

Feeling a little nostalgic,
World'sWaning

Posted By: jmh Re: Creameries - 02/26/02 07:10 AM
Hi World's Waning

Are we just doing anything begining with "C" now?

Posted By: belligerentyouth Re: Creameries - 02/26/02 12:04 PM
> Are we just doing anything begining with "C" now?

Yeah, cut that out Wordwind - you can't just whip up any word in an extemporaneous or informal manner!

Anyway where was I... oh yes, I visited a 'cidery' down-under, and I have the sneeking feeling this is neologic, errhm, term. Does anyone have a dictionary which recognizes cidery? Is there such a thing as a whiskery too? :-)

Posted By: Bean Re: Creameries - 02/26/02 12:10 PM
Is there such a thing as a whiskery too?

Yah, my husband!

Posted By: wwh Re: Creameries - 02/26/02 08:52 PM
If the people who own the "cidery" had a PR person, they would call it a "ciderium". That's got more class.

I checked Internet, and found an ad for the Green Mountain Cidery.

As a bit of trivia, it said on news yesterday that the authorities knew about problem at the crummy crematory, and did nothing, because law had a loophole. They just "hoped the problem would go away."
Sounds to me like they are accessories after the fact.

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