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#132813 09/17/04 09:14 PM
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waffles in email? do you have to wait for the little light to go out before you can open them?



formerly known as etaoin...
#132814 09/18/04 12:43 AM
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And don't they tend to gunk up the insides of your computer?

callithump, here's a warning for you: there are great differences between how British and Americans use some words. In Britain, waffle is apparently used as a verb, meaning that someone thinks first one way, then another ("No. Yes. No. Yes. Maybe.") I have never heard it used that way here in the U.S.; here, it is used only as a noun; it is a breakfast treat, something like a pancake.


#132815 09/18/04 01:56 AM
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Max, I understood your point immediately. And certainly didn't mean to disagree with your point.

Such deference, Wordwind.

#132816 09/18/04 02:02 AM
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oh, good grief.



formerly known as etaoin...
#132817 09/18/04 02:07 AM
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oh, good grief

How did "grief" ever become a "good" thing, I wonder.


#132818 09/18/04 04:00 AM
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Jackie, I have heard "waffled" in the US as a verb... just fairly recently, mostly alluding to politicians.


#132819 09/18/04 09:21 AM
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I, too, have heard 'waffle' used as a verb for a very long time here in Virginia--at least, oh, thirty years. Maybe, Jackie, in Kentucky you have such a high quality of waffles, you don't permit any other meaning of the word to uproot its place!

And M.Webster's documents it as a verb here in the USA:

Main Entry: 2waffle
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): waf·fled; waf·fling /-f(&-)li[ng]/
Etymology: frequentative of obsolete woff to yelp, of imitative origin

1 : EQUIVOCATE, VACILLATE; also : YO-YO, FLIP-FLOP
2 : to talk or write foolishly : BLATHER <can waffle... tiresomely off the point -- Times Literary Supplement>
- waf·fler /-f(&-)l&r/ noun



But why would waffling in email be so prevalent?


#132820 09/18/04 10:28 AM
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Here in the true south we do not use the plebeian word waffle. We use the French word. Just recently I heard one of our good old boys say about a politician: He crepped all over the stage. At least I am sure that must have been what he meant.



TEd
#132821 09/18/04 02:26 PM
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Thats funny TEd. The French word for waffle is gaufre. Une crępe is a pancake.


#132822 09/18/04 02:55 PM
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Okay, okay, I shoulda said mainly. I have seen it used, yes, usually referring to politicians; but I have never heard a single person say it as a verb.


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