Nothing sad about spotting and counting "Stobbies" and "Nobbies" (Norbert Dentressangle lorries, French competitors, boo hiss) on a long Motorway trip*, Jo!

I've brought this in from FoaB’s post on the “would you steak your life on it” thread as that has become rather long and this is really a diversion from it.

Dentressangle, now there’s a name to conjure with. I’ve only ever seen it on the trucks. What does it mean? It must mean something, such a grandiose name can't be simply a random collection of noises. Whenever I see one I start trying to think what an English equivalent might be. This should be my chance to solicit some views.

It could be that Dent is from tooth or does it come from D’entre which could mean “from between”, or perhaps the “sang” is blood or “angle” is, well, angle. Then again I seem to remember hearing that Angleterre meant land of angels because the people had fair hair, but angel is “ange” isn’t it? And anyway I’m not so sure we had fair hair in those days, whenever they were. That’s always puzzled me too. Can anyone shed light on my darkness? Or am I just unreasonably obsessed with this name…its probably a Belgian name anyway…(Disappears offstage muttering followed by a bear).

such a grandiose name

Yes, David, it is a goody.

I reckon (without any evidence) that the derivation is from d'entre = "from between" and sangle = "strap, saddle, girth"
So Dentressangle = "from between (the) saddle(s)"

This doesn't make much sense at first glance, but in English we talk about the saddle of a hill, so perhaps it's a geographical reference?

Have to ask Norbert if his ancestors were born in the French equivalent of "The Valleys" for instance.

Are you around belM ? Does this look plausible to a French speaker?

We (my wife and I) every couple months or so ride about 30 miles north to a little town in southern Pennsylvania where there is a really good farmers market. We frequently see trucks on the roads (2 lane roads for the most part) which are painted with the legend "Wolf Eggs". It took a while to figure out that there was a large chicken farm run by someone named Wolf.

As for other strange names, you frequently encounter hereabouts trucks painted orange which have a trailer attached with a branch grinder/chipper. The trucks bear the name Asplundh, which is a company which does tree trimming and removal. Have never seen that anywhere else and no idea what nationality or language it may be.

>The trucks bear the name Asplundh, which is a company which does tree trimming and removal. Have never seen that anywhere else and no idea what nationality or language it may be.

It looks vaguely Swedish/generic Scandinavian to me. In silviculture country where I grew up, a Husky is a Swedish-made chainsaw, not a dog. That's what makes think perhaps Asplundh is another Swedish name.

In reply to:

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This doesn't make much sense at first glance, but in English we talk about the saddle of a hill, so perhaps it's a geographical reference?

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Isn't a saddle a low-lying, flattish area between two hills--like a plateau between two hills--but not as low-lying as a valley?

I'd agree with you, Dub-dub. From my fell-walking days (saddle-y gone, now) we would talk about walking up from the valley to the saddle and then down into the valley beyond, or possibly use it as an easy route to gain height before scrambling up the remaining scarp of one or other of the mountains either side.

I've seen those Asplundh trucks here in Kentucky too. We had one come and remove a tree that had been knocked over by a tornado when I was a kid. I always thought the name sounded like a sneeze.

There is a live webcam on this site; if you can get to it you can see Doyle Saddle. It's the area between the rightmost sharp peak and the rounded top on the far right.

http://www.rmrs.nau.edu/lab/

to coin a phrase -- they have branches everywhere!

An Asplundh truck trimmed some branches on our large sycamore tree a year or so ago (only because the electricity company was worried about the overhead power lines).

"Carl Hjalmar Asplundh left his native Sweden in 1882..."

http://www.asplundh.com/history.htm

are Husqvarna brand. I've heard they are among the best built in the world.

Isn't a saddle a low-lying, flattish area between two hills--like a plateau between two hills--but not as low-lying as a valley?

Yes, WW. But what would you call an area between saddles, D'entre (les) sangles? I was thinking of it as the same as the area between hills (i.e. "valleys"), though I suppose it may just as well be "peaks" that lie between saddles.

I think I'll just go off and count Stobbies somewhere.

The widespread terminology for saddle in Alabama is "Gap".
The term water gap indicates that the flow of water that downcut the mountain still flows. While a wind gap indicates that the stream that downcut the mountain has long since found other outlets and today no water flows. A "saddle" as such, seems better descriptive of low breaks in mountains out west.

The widespread terminology for saddle in Alabama is "Gap"

Interesting. I thought the defining characteristic of a saddle was that it had negative curvature. That is, it would be concave upward in the x-axis and convex upward in the y-axis, like a saddle.

Well, I just tried to google a picture of a saddle and didn't find much that was good.

Here's a general definition from MW:

3 a : a ridge connecting two higher elevations b : a pass in a mountain
range

Viking sewing machines are made under the same umbrella as Husqvarna... in fact, IIRC, their industrial machines may be marketed under the Husky name.

The widespread terminology for saddle in Alabama is "Gap" - Milum


Interesting. I thought the defining characteristic of a saddle was that it had negative curvature. - Faldage


What Faldage!

Negative curvature? Negative curvature is, in fact, a straight line.

But surely you recognize that analogies by their essence are suggestive rather than exact. ___

Uh...you do don't you?

______________ __________

Just to belabor a point from MW...the second meaning of saddle, geographically speaking, was:

b : a pass in a mountain
range


...and that supports the Alabamian application of gap for saddle

But it doesn't support the photographs I've seen of mountain saddles that showed elevations more like the first part of the definition. See MW part a. in my post above

Good to have a knapsack filled with various applications.

Just heard from a former AWADer who provided this url. It's a useful one because it has illustrations and topo sketches:

http://www.map-reading.com/ch10-6.php

that supports the Alabamian application of gap for saddle

I was just concerned with the notion that water would flow through a saddle; given that a saddle has negative curvature (I defined it, Mr. M., it ain't no straight line) the water would have to flow uphill at some point for it to be a water gap.

Actually, the (a) and (b) definitions above are pretty much the same thing anyway. It's a bit like saying a net is string tied in a lattice-like way or a net is a set of strings surrounding square or oblong holes and knotted at each corner.

While we don't use "gap" in Zild, we do use "saddle" extensively. They are typically also called "passes". There isn't any useful distinction between the names as far as I can tell. On one hiking trip I used to do frequently we went over Sugarloaf Pass then over Park Pass then over Cow Saddle. No discernable difference as far as I was aware.

When we were in the States last year we went through a number of "gaps". Generally they were simply passes between two hilly areas, such as the Cumberland Gap.