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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Mr. Clennam is visiting the debtors prison: " As they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed him with borrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something handsome. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders, shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their figures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in alcoholic breathings.
The practise of begging. If it were not for the context, and the similarity to "mendicant" I would have supected it of being a typo for "mendacity".
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
These two are good to put on our easily confused lists, although we do hear of mendacious mendicants. Most recently, two friends of mine told the story of traveling the interstate highway where at a rest station a couple with a baby was 'working' the crowd to get money for a broken-down car. The tale was that they just needed enough money for gas, but my friends observed them receive money over and over as they went to different spots at the rest station. They even had a baby in arms to get more sympathy for their tale of plight.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Hey! They're related along with 'amend'! Look at this from MW: Etymology: Middle English, from Old French amender, modification of Latin emendare, from e, ex out + menda fault; akin to Latin mendax lying, mendicus beggar, and perhaps to Sanskrit mindA physical defect
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