Elsewhere, dr. bill used the term "procrustean bed". His usage seemed inaccurate to me, and upon looking it up I discovered that my own usage was also somewhat inaccurate.
But more interestingly, the various dictionaries I checked differ from each other -- and even a single dictionary may be inconsistent between "procrustean" and "procrustean bed". In fact, bartleby.com differs from my recent bricks-and-mortar AHD. The differences are nuances, but ones that strike me as important nuances.
Which leads me to the question: how do our board participants understand these terms (without looking them up, which would of course prejudice the responses).
(Note: I'm not asking for the etymology. Current meaning may not track etymology, and I suspect the etymology is familiar to anyone who uses the terms themselves.)
A procrustean is a person who eats the entire slice, including the browned, chewier parts around the outside. A procrustean bed is the sleeping pad of a person who eats the slice, usually toasted, before arising in the morning, often leaving procrumbean bits behind.
often leaving procrumbean bits behind. - the good Father Steve.
Ah, a good Father who returns from his honeymoon no wiser but still with his humor intact. Ah, a rare but suspectable bird indeed. () (used with permission).
Somebody did a hell of a lot of stretching to get Elvis the Pelvis onto the list.
A procrustean is a person who eats the entire slice, including the browned, chewier parts around the outside.Nah, that's a concrustian. Procrustian, in modern parlance, deals with marketing. Everybody's gotta fit the same pattern, and/or be sold the same package deal, and they've cut off our heads to make it work.
There are, of course, those who insist on only the very best, which persons might be described as uppercrustean.
And many children will eat no crusts at all. They are centrists.
There are, of course, those who insist on only the very best, which persons might be described as
uppercrustean.
And when those same patricians eat lobster they're uppercrustacean.
Silly Geoff. Everyone who knows anything about world geography knows that Upper Crustacea is a small province of Greece, up the Struma River, north of the Aegean Sea, known for its many deposits of limestone, left when it was part of the bottom of the sea.
Bill, my granddaughter doesn't eat the crusts of bread, either -- she eats only the crumb, as she will tell you. I don't really know where a 3 yr. old learned this archaic but correct word, but I can guess.
Silly Geoff.
Thank you, sir. I do my best. Now, is Upper Crustacea adjacent (just south of) Mastodonia, the land from which Philip of Mastodon brought the large beasts later used by Alexander the Grape? I know it has no relationship whatsoever to Upper Volta, which is a shockingly small country in West Africa.
I am still waiting for Megawati Soekarnoputri (President of Indonesia) to visit Upper Volta.
Bingley
and that Pi-crustean, does it have an Upper crust on? or is it an Open Pi-crustean?
personally, i am rather Pro crumb-crust on, when it comes to pie!
Megawati Soekarnoputri to visit Upper Volta
Where she will, no doubt, be involved in current affairs.
Megawati Soekarnoputri to visit Upper Volta
Where she will, no doubt, be involved in current affairs.
WATT?
Which was the caption on a political cartoon some years ago of what critters in the wild said when told of Nixon's new Secretary of the Interior.
And this reminds me of an old game, one which we should perhaps make into a thread of its own. It is called 9W. Invented, if I recall correctly by Johnnie Carson. In the format of Jeopardy, where someone gives a word and the others respond with questions that the word would be a logical answer for.
9W
Do you spell your name with a V, Herr Vagner?
or
Shogun:
How do you get fast service in a bank?
Upon re-visiting Upper Volta, one might find it re-Volting. And having established the circumference and
formula of its pastry shells, one becomes Pi-Crustean.
And we know that the crust is cooked in an equal sided container, since pie are squared. Now, do the residents of Ms. Megawatti's country wear turbines on their heads? I would presume that being around such magnetic personalities would leave one in a state of constant flux. (Opportunity here for the North Poles and the South Poles to come charging in)
I appear to have led a movement which trashed AphonicRants' perfectly reasonable, sensible and serious inquiry. Bad vicar! Sorry, chum.
Father Steve
Dear Father Steve: we are all so glad to see you posting again, you could not possibly offend. I'm sure AR will agree with me.
perfectly reasonable, sensible and serious inquiry
Procrustean refers to the time period before the Earth's crust formed from the cooling of the surface of the liquid mass that was the early Earth. The Procrustean bed is the top of the liquid core of the Earth directly beneath the crust.
Dear SM: If you grow up to be a frog, I hope a genuine Prince kisses you.
Dear Father Steve: we are all so glad to see you posting again, you could not possibly offend.Quite right, dr. bill. Father, we have been too long evicarated, and if my poor thread can be credited with inducing your return, then it is a tremendous success!
[buy you a beer? -e]
Procrushtian Bed:
Otherwise known at the Iron Maiden.
Beat regards,
WordWarbucks Do you have any idea how the lyrics--lyric for purists--of "It's a Hard-Knock Life" sung a hundred times this week in rehearsal for the show tomorrow night can crush your head like a walnut!!?? I live (barely) to tell the tale...
Do you have any idea how the lyrics--lyric for purists--of "It's a Hard-Knock Life" sung a
hundred times this week in rehearsal for the show tomorrow night can crush your head like a walnut!!??
Well, my nut-brained friend, you have no doubt noticed, just by pecan into one, that a walnut looks an awful lot like a cerebrum! Even has a corpus callosum.
Goober pea-brained Geoff
Bad vicar!
Ah, the acrid, but also palliative emissions of Vicar's Vapo-Rub!
I always wondered how Procrustes went about stretching wimps six feet tall. I wonder if the mechanics of the rack and pinion were known in his day. I have seen pictures of a mechanical computer of amazing complexity recovered from an ancient wreck. But I have never seen any indication that the Greeks that early having anything with gears or screws. Let's hear some theories.
I've thought for a long time that shelled pecan meat looks like a brain, but this spring I also noticed that shelled pecans look like baseball mitts.
Not sure how I can fit these observations into the Variations on a Theme....
Bat regards,
WordWalnut
never seen any indication that the Greeks that early having anything with gears or screwsArchimedes had a screw.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/a/archimscr.asp
Dear Faldage: Half the Greek population did too, and many of them. But I was talking about the age of mythology, when Procrustes was redimensioning travellers.
Bill - you may have seen this already, but AHD gives the etymology of this word as:
from Latin Procrustes, from Greek Prokrousts,from prokrouein, hammer out, to stretch out : pro-, forth; see pro–2 + krouein, to beat.
So, as odd as it sounds, it appears that Proctrustes method may have been more like flattening and rolling out dough, or even pounding out a soft metal, rather than stretching with a screw-driven rack.
On the whole Archimedes question, I recently read One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (I swear, I do have a life) by the vowel-deprived Witold Rybczynski. It's a short, interesting book about the provenance of these two items, which the author views as the most important tools to have appeared in the last millennium. I guess there were screw-threaded devices before then, like Archimedes' water-lifter, and others for pressing olive oil, but they don't go back much further than Archimedes. Which bears out Bill's point that there was no screwing around during the actual® life time of the mythical Procrustes.
p.s. - in thinking about it - you don't need a screw for a rack, just a wheel, around which a cable or chain could be tightened, and some sort of peg or ratchet to hold the wheel in position. Time to stop designing torture devices in my head now...
Dear :Hyla: Nice informative post, thank you. I didn't know where to look for etymology of Procrustes' name.
But flesh not being malleable, a tensioning device would be needed. There is a primitive way called a "Spanish windlass", an English mockery of Spanish seamanship, that involved tying a loop around two fixed points, and the passing a bar between them and twisting the ropes to tighten them.
You also reminded me of the legend of Pythagorus' getting rich by achieving a corner on olive oil presses. But Procrustes belonged to the much earlier age of mythology.