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The action of this novel starts when the oldest pig on the farm, Old Major, calls all animals to a secret meeting. He tells them about his dream of a revolution against the cruel Mr Jones."Any great change must expect opposition because it shakes the very foundation of privilege." Lucretia Mott Let the tinkers tink, and the thinkers think, and let's all live together in harmony. No thinker has ever made much of a thread without a tinker to fill in the voids. 
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No thinker has ever made much of a thread without a tinker to fill in the voids.P.S. Yet let's give thinkers their due. No tinker who has ever filled a void has ever made a coat of a patch. Moral of the story: We need one another. The only thing that separates tinkers from thinkers is the 8th letter of the alphabet. We have so much left over to work with ... I tink.
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Pooh-Bah
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-- give the thinkers their due -- which droppeth from heaven like the quality of mercy. For if the Cartesian thinkers did not, they would not be – then what use for tinkers or knitters? For it is the tinkers who keep the knitters in stitches.
Indeed, the whole proposition is a stitch-up
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For it is the tinkers who keep the knitters in stitches.I agree tinkers and thinkers have more in common than 25 letters of the alphabet, and we should try to stitch over our differences. Come to think of it, that's a good job for the tinkers. You may be interested in this review of "Apes, Language and the Human Mind" which may give thinkers reason to question whether "Cartesian thinkers" are all they are cut out to be. Review: "The authors then proceed to show that arguments which have been used to bolster the existential gap view in fact are incapable of supporting the notion that humans themselves have the exclusive and proprietary capacities which Cartesian thinkers have attributed to them. That is, (a) the evidence which such thinkers use purportedly to prove the existence of various capacities in humans is shown to be equally in evidence in at least one kind of animal, but (b) the evidence which is used purportedly to disprove these capacities in animals is shown in fact to be inadequate to prove the existence of those capacities in humans. In other words, as is further suggested in the final chapter, we have no logical or evidential basis for maintaining the Cartesian view, and the implications for our own human behavior are accordingly far-reaching." Full Review at: http://www.outdoorshub.com/Apes_Language_and_the_Human_Mind_0195109864.htmlThough it defies conventional tinking, it may be that the distance between human and ape intelligence is no greater than the distance between thinker and tinker intelligence. Personally, I think the jury is still out on this. Apes may be able to close the gap faster than tinkers, but I don't thinks apes will ever be able to close a void. They don't have the fingers for it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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this is all very strange. Tink (KNIT backwards) and tinking, (un knitting a few stitches) is one thing. tinkers, (itinerent workers who came round to fix the holes in your tin pots and pans, and who are the 'stars' of many a bawdy ballad!) are something else.
now days, the term tinkers is generaly used on anyone who fixes up, or puts something that was broken to a new use (just as tinkers of old make old leaky pots into something useful again) --by just thinking about how it can best be used-- not following any specific instructions or directions.
then there are knitters, fiber artist, and nit pickers.. and finally there are thinkers.
the groups are not exclusive!
i am thinker, and a tinker (new sense of the word!) and a knitter, and on occation i have been a nit picker(both literally and figuratively!)
some here aren't much for nit picking (literally or figuatively!) more aren't much for knitting, but most are both tinkers and thinkers!
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Re: "we should try to stitch over our differences.
... Come to think of it, that's a good job for the tinkers."and "I am a thinker and a tinker ... and a knitter".You're right. You are all of these things ... and more, of Troy. I should have given the job to you! In fact, I think I have. Thank you. As a thinker, I can give you a run for your money. But as a tinker, you are way beyond me. You can't beat an all-round t-h-inker.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Helen:
i would have used tinker as an intransitive verb and tinkerer as a noun, in place of tink and tinkering. OED supports both approaches, but leaves the impression that tinkering is the art of trying ineffectually to fix things, if such can be an art rather than artless.
I wonder if there isn;t some regionalism invovled here.
Not surprisingly, tinker is an English and Scots term for a gypsy.
TEd
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Tinker may once have meant "gypsy", but now the epithet for gypsy in Northamptonshire and probably the rest of the country, said with as much bile as possible, is f**cking gippos!
They are also known as "travellers" by a lot of people. It's probably a better description, as most of them don't seem to have any Romany heritage.
As far as I can tell, "tinker" has reverted to someone itinerant who fixes things.
"Tinkering" has alway meant "trying to do something without noticeable success" to me.
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Carpal Tunnel
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there are 'gypsies' -- a group of indian-sub continent people (based on language and DNA data) who used to be unsettled demi-artitians (and or demi theives) in most of eastern centeral europe. they like the jews, the homosexuals, the handicapped, were largely wiped out 60 some years ago. only a very small percentage of them still survive. they tend to have dark skin, and hair, and spoke their own language. there were never liked, and had the reputation of being theives and con artist.
a small percentage managed to move to western europe, and some retreated further east, and some ended up in US.
there are also travellers. travellers are mostly irish, (at least in US) and travellers are demi con men, and traders. they speak gaelic, with a specialized vocabulary, and they, too, are a semi nomadic people. (nowday living in RV's and/or mobil homes)
there are also tinkers. tinkers travelled (and were sometimes travellers, but tinkers mostly did small repairs on tin (and copper glaced tin) pot. they were also famous for 'lifting silver spoon' or other items from the kitchens they worked in.
(a) tinker is a noun, (to) tinker is a verb.
a tinker's dam (crossing thread!) is the small dam of putty a tinker would build round the hole in a pot before attempting to repair the pot with molten metal. when the solder (tin and lead!) was hard, the dam was knocked off. a tinkers dam is a fragile, temporary thing, of little use, made with cheap material, and not expected to last more than a few minutes--or, at least, thats how it started. nowdays, a tinkers dam is anything that is short lived, and generally worthless!
(authority for all this? NONE! but tinker's dam did come up before, and i know a little about travellers, and gypsies from general reading. gypsies got there name because they were supposed to have come from eygpt. (In england they were called the 'Romany', because they were thought to come from Romania, or to be 'left over' ancient romans)but post WWII studies of the surviving gypsies indicate their language was closer to language of the indian sub continent (i forget which, not a big one that i knew of).
of the 10 million killed in the death camps, over 6 million were jews. gypsies were the next biggest 'ethnic' group. their life style didn't create any great culture, and they don't have educated articulate spokesmens to tell their story.)
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Well, this thread is becoming a little disquieting, but I thought I'd through out some etymologies. Though there is some confusion amongst non-Roma as to whether the Roma came from Egypt (i.e., Gypsies) or Romania (i.e., "Romany"), the origin of the name of the people and their language is usually derived: rom 'man' which is akin to Prakrit d.oma 'man of low caste origin', Sanskrit d.om(b)a 'low caste male musician'.
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In hhmmmm, 1977 I think it was, while travelling by bike through England, we ran across signs saying "No vanners allowed". This was in Wisbech, I believe. When I asked what vanners were, I was surprised to learn that it was a shortened term for cravaners, and specifically referred to gypsies who traveled around in horse-drawn wagons. Actually saw some of them the next day, but gave them a wide berth. Probably should not have, in retrospect. Would have been fascinating to learn more about them.
TEd
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"No vanners allowed". ... I was surprised to learn that it was a shortened term for cravaners
I wonder if there is a linguistic connection between "cravaners" and "caravans".
I remember reading an Egyptian proverb some years back [Anwar Sadat responding to homeland critics of his Camp David peace initiative]:
"The dogs will bark but the caravan keeps rolling along."
In his case, alas, there was more than just bark in those "dogs".
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>I wonder if there is a linguistic connection between "cravaners" and "caravans".
I don't know about there being a linguistic connection, but there is a typographical connection.
TEd
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I don't know about there being a linguistic connection, but there is a typographical connection.
They have something else in common, TEd.
It is probably wise to give both a "wide berth" if you don't know what they're carrying in the "van".
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Pooh-Bah
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I met a horse drawn van once while cycling thru' France. When I stopped and asked to take a picture his wife and daughters all disappeared while the sons jumped out to be in the picture. All of the kids were under 12, at a guess. We only spoke for a few minutes but they were very nice. I couldn't buy a basket because my bike was already loaded unfortunately.
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Pooh-Bah
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I met a horse drawn van once while cycling thru' France. When I stopped and asked to take a picture his wife and daughters all disappeared while the sons jumped out to be in the picture. All of the kids were under 12, at a guess. We only spoke for a few minutes but they were very nice. I couldn't buy a basket because my bike was already loaded unfortunately.
There is a facinating movie/documentary called Latcha Drom. It traces the supposed route of the original Gypsies featuring the music and a snatch of the lifestyle and dancing of Gypsy families in India, Turkey, Eastern Europe France and Spain. There is no narration Just the subtitled translation of the songs. The Flamenco music and dancing of Spain is startlingly like the Indian version.
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Pooh-Bah
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I should perhaps make myself a little clearer. The "gippos" I'm referring to are no more Romanies than I am Martian. They are just vagrants with beaten up cars, tumbledown caravans and a larcenous streak a mile wide. In this country to declare yourself a traveller is to become one in the eyes of the authorities. They travel from "work" to "work" mob-handed. They trespass wherever they feel like it, setting up "camp" on farmers' fields or a supermarket carpark with impunity. And they'll break down gates and fences to get there. Instead of doing the obvious thing - condemning their caravans, forcing their cars off the road, taking the kids into care to get them some education and arresting them as soon as they poke their noses into the area - the law actually protects them. The local police and government bodies are not allowed to evict them unless some alternative site is found for them. The laws were put in place to protect the real gypsies but by usage the legal umbrella has been extended to cover all gypsy-like people. A friend of mine who is an old-style policeman would like to hound them right out of the county, but instead finds himself facing down the local population who want to deal to the b**stards.
Wherever the gippos go the petty crime rate soars, people are intimidated and things get very tense. They hang around their makeshift campsites, just dumping rubbish any old where - mattresses, old furniture, burnt-out car bodies and zillions of plastic bags. When it all gets a bit much for these precious creatures, they up stakes and move on to make some other community's life a mystery, leaving their ordure behind them without so much as a backward glance.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Wherever the gippos go the petty crime rate soars, people are intimidated and things get very tense.
huh. there's an internet variation, too...
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