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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
I've never associated "dollop" with any "size", large or small. A dollop is a dollop to me, that is some indeterminate amount. The use of "dash", "pinch", "splash", etc. are much more precise, in an imprecise kind of way.
A dollop of concrete could mean anything from a bricklayer's trowelful to an entire truckload. A dollop of milk in my cornflakes has a finite upper limit (the capacity of the bowl), but the lower limit is bounded only by it needing to be greater than 0. A dollop of glue on the back of a piece of paper being glued to another is both upper and lower bounded by common sense and paper size. Beyond that, hey, the possibilities are boundless.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I agree with those who say that the size of a dollop varies with the substance being measured and also with the observation that a dollop wouldn't refer to a liquid. Liquid is measured in glucks.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
A dollop of concrete could mean anything from a bricklayer's trowelful to an entire truckload.
Capfka got it right, a dollop is a generous amount.. but not overflowing..
if you read the label of the immitation 'whipped cream' containers, they say a small contain has 56 servings.. (about 2 cups in volume, or about the same as i 1/2 pint of heavy cream whipped)in reality, for most house holds, it has 8 to 10 serving.
even in the commercials, they don't show it being doled out at a rate that would yeild 56 servings, they show it being served in dollops!
of course for whipped cream, one has schlag! (a german word-- don't know what it mean in german, but its come to mean a generous dollop of whip cream served with the food-- at least in people of a certain age--it could also signify sour cream, if appropriate.)
so one could say 'we had ice cream for dessert, not quite sundays, but it did have schlag and nuts."
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
…and I've been known to say 'a dob' and use it as a verb though I don't know whether this isn't just a self-made conglomerate… ~ byThis rang an unrelated bell with me so I dived into a dictionary of 'Slang Used in the UK' looking for this: dob: Verb. To inform on, betray. [Orig. Aust.] I also found these. (Amazing, incidentally, how many terms are used for the organs of generation)(I like to be delicate - keeps the gutter police away  ): dobber: Noun. 1. A penis.2. An idiot, a contemptible person.3. Something very large. E.g."I've never seen a pizza so big, it was a real dobber, and we could only eat half of it between six of us." [Northern use]
dobbing Adj. A general intensifier. E.g."This dobbing great idiot spilt my drink and didn't apologise, so I hit him."
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>what drove you to want to answer the thread's question?
well, there was Father Steve about to put a smidgeon of thick clotted cream on his scones.
but I have an inkling that I haven't answered *your question..
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
To me a dollop is a rather large serving plumped down on
recipient's plate with inelegant vigor.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 67
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 67 |
I remember there being an icecream shop by the name of "Dollops" where I lived as a child (much frequented by us kids, of course)... It was much later that I learnt that 'dollop' didn't exclusively refer to icecream!!
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,562 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,562 Likes: 1 |
Not only that, but with a little looseness of the vertical spacing, a dollop is also a rotational palindrome.
Write it on a small piece of paper, push a pin through the paper between the two "l"s, turn the paper around the pin 180 degrees, and you still have the same word.
It's too bad you can't speak of a dollop of paper; the symmetries would be multiplied even more!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Good grief, wofa, how did you ever think of doing something like that? That's cool.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
of course for whipped cream, one has schlag
schlag is not a measure, but simply short for german Schlagrahm i.e. whipped (geschlagener) cream (Rahm).
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