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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, yes, those are gutters too. Still don't understand about the Southern usage though? Sometimes a candle gutters...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Perhaps the word has been known all along outside the United States, but within the United States only by the Southern States?
Bingley
Bingley
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Gutters is a Southern word? .... Or is there some special meaning intended here - not just the places from which one is drug up?Seems like, dxb: The channels along the edge of a roof for carrying away rainwater (normally referred to in the plural) are variously known as eaves troughs or, less commonly, eaves spouts in parts of New England, the Great Lakes states, and, for the former, the West; spouting or rainspouts in eastern Pennsylvania and the Delmarva Peninsula; and gutters from Virginia southward. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gutterI suppose you could say that "gutter trash" and later "trailer trash" came out of the South as well, but that wouldn't be real polite. If you've got your mind in the gutter, your mind is collecting a lot of trash just like an eaves trough, but no-one says you've got your mind in a trough. So gutters gave us "gutter trash" and it was a short trip from there to "trailer trash". Now, that's ironic, isn't it? I wish Aorto was around to read this. Gutters gave us trailer trash but there are no gutters on a trailer. gutter adj. Befitting the lowest class of human life; vulgar, sordid, or unprincipled: gutter language; the gutter press.http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gutterGutters also gave us "gutter snipe": Gutter snipe, a neglected boy running at large;From LITDOTORG - http://www.indictionary.com Before I leave this subject, I should probably even the score, regionally speaking. We owe "your mind is in the gutter" to the South, but we owe "your head is in the trough" to the North. Of course, the trough I'm referring to is the feed trough. Politicians in the North must have had a leg up on the South in this department.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I was always under the impression that the gutter in "gutter press" and "mind in the gutter" referred to the road-side gutters rather than roof guttering.
Bingley
Bingley
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re "road-side gutters rather than roof guttering": Which came first, curbs or gables?
Perhaps, Bingley, but they are the same thing, functionally, are they not? They are both designed to collect run-off and direct it by force of gravity to a downspout or sewer.
Perhaps streets had gutters before buildings had gutters, but considering that the word "gutters" originated in the South, not in the North, it seems [to me] most likely that gutters appeared on the rooftops of the Old South before they appeared on the streets of the Old South -- but who knows? Perhaps themilum [from the great state of Alabama].
BTW dxb makes an interesting point: Sometimes a candle gutters...
Do you see any connection between 'water guttering' and 'flame guttering', Bingley? A guttering flame bends in a breeze.*
Gravity is to water what wind is to flame. And a guttering catches both water and flame in a draft.
Wikepedia: To draft water from a reservoir is to suction water from it.
* dxb has very helpfully cleared this up in his new "gutter press" thread.
I see where I went astray now. A candle flame sputters and flutters in a draft, but candle flames do not "gutter". It is the candle itself which "gutters" [in melting wax].
Now I get it. Thanks, dxb. :)
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I hope you had an opportunity to warm milk in that skillet, Father Steve.
From Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, W.W. Skeat:
SKILLET (1) a small pot. (Scand; with F. suffix.) … skele is the same as the prov. E. skeel, a milk-pail, a diary-vessel (see E.D.D.). From this word we have the dimin. skillet, a little pot or pan, also still in use. …. The mod. E. ee (ME. e) answers to AS, eo and Icel. jo; hence the derivation is from Icel. skjola, a pail, bucket, of which Vigfusson notes that it is the same as “the North E. and Scot. skeel or skeil, a milk-pan. Skillet (also skellet) is a diminutive; the F dimin suffix –et may easily have been suggested (as Prof Weekley says) by association with the word posnet, also a dialectal word with the sense of “iron pot” or “saucepan.”
I noticed a second skillet in this dictionary. Variously spelled “skillet” and “skellat”, it seems that it means “a little bell”, and derives from OF esquilette -> eschelette, a little handbell.
Oddly, both terms have connections to Icelandic. The handbell skillet connects to Icel. skella, a rattle to scare horses, skella, to clash; allied to the Icel. Strong verb skjalla, AS. scellan, to resound, clash.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I hope you had an opportunity to warm milk in that skillet, Father Steve.
I arrived in Texas without a single cooking implement in my luggage. Miss Cyndy, the chief cook, allowed me to use a few of hers. Texans can be so very hospitable.
It is a good thing that Lent begins at midnight tonight. I ate enough chicken-fried steak and biscuits with country gravy and barbecued ribs and deep-fried okra and deep-fried catfish and hush puppies to clog up seven people's coronary arteries. I'm thinking that if I live on sprouts for the forty days of Lent, perhaps mine will become unclogged.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sounds like great fun, Father S. Flavors galour!
What do you all call the large, handleless grill that can accommodate great pancakes? We call ours at home the 'griddle.'
Handleless: Well, almost. There are two opposite-sided short cast iron handles, very short, but no long handle.
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What do you all call the large, handleless grill that can accommodate great pancakes? ... We call ours at home the 'griddle.'Hey, Wordwind. It's called a pancake griddle or skillet. http://www.cookingwithkids.com/pep/mother/breakfast/pancake.htmlBut you can call yours a skiddle 'cause it's got handles.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> if I live on sprouts for the forty days of Lent...
you can stand downwind of us! Gives gastronomy a [w]hole new meaning :)
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