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Joined: Sep 2000
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STOOP - We use this term to mean the tiny landing at the top of the stairs in front of the door. You usually sit on the stoop taking in the goings-on on the street.

Elizabeth, maybe it's the French seeping over to you In French, we say walking around in sock-feet too when you walk around in socks alone.


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maybe it's the French seeping over to you

Oh, no doubt. I love being sesquilingual, and frequently use French phrases like "pas de probleme" and "Que faites-tu?" when I'm talking to my husband - who knows far less French than even my half-assed accomplishment, but "gets it" from context.



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pas de probleme

Ha! You are a Frenchy Elizabeth, you'd fit right in here...."No problem" - that's our unofficial motto.


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trap

Now that's one I've never heard!

Thanks, H!


#141906 04/16/05 02:39 PM
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of troy Offline OP
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check out Engrish.com (a site full of mostly japanese mangled english..)

on left menu, click on Signs and Posters..

to to LAST, and then Previous--(penultimate page)
to get to "Pictures 177 to 192 of 195"

scroll down to the bottom of the page.

the first europian language dictionary in japan was a Dutch/Japanese one.. Later they realized Dutch was not the most widely spoken language in the world, (just happened that Dutch had made inroads into that part of asia!)

Trap--as a synonym for staircase/stepping stones was apparently not unknown in english.(at some point in the past) and the japanese still use Trap occationally.


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"Emergency Trap"--ha; didn't look like a step to me. I've never heard trap for step; I guess not as many Dutch settled in KY as they did north and east of here. I like the term 'trap rock', though; it has kind of a ring to it.



#141908 04/19/05 01:18 PM
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In north New England it's barefoot for bare feet and padding for wearing just sox. I wonder if the passing comes partly from the fact that your feet are padded by the sox?
And paddding around has a sort of aimless quality to the phrase or sometimes a sneaky element depending on how it's used!
Confusing, wot?


#141909 04/19/05 03:38 PM
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In Britland we say 'barefoot' or 'in stockinged feet'. No commonly used cute expression for either that I am aware of. Padding around would simply imply silence and probably stealth - to me anyway.

(If I ever go without shoes, even indoors, the result is usually highly painful ~ Johnny Head-in-air.)


#141910 04/19/05 04:00 PM
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The common feature of most examples of the word pad seems to be a sense of cushioning, as traced in some of the examples at etymonline:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=p

(though I note that Bartleby gives a slightly different etymology for the pad component of footpad to that offered in the first site, tracing it to words meaning path more directly:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE394.html)


#141911 04/20/05 01:25 AM
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From mav's Bartleby link:
b. pad2; footpad, from Middle Dutch pad, way, path.

Hmm--is this why foot Dr.'s are podiatrists?


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