|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
as I'm feeling a bit guilty for foisting Robin v. Marian on an unsuspecting public, and as joint pooh-bah, I offer up the following lighthearted challenge: post the most ridiculous word(s) you can think of -- I'm thinking along the lines of tufthunter and snollygoster* (and pooh-bah)....
*okay, they don' hafta be that obscure.
-tsuwp
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Pooh-Bah the First: I see no reason for you to apologize for the Personality quiz. It was obvious everybody enjoyed it.
Tufthunter is new to me. Sounds a bit like Indian scalping, which indentally I have heard was taught the savages by the cultured whites, to keep score for promised bounties.
I can think of something ribald, but not good enough to post.
President Truman used snollygoster to deride some of his critics in a press conference. It seems to be a corruption of Pennsyvania Dutch "schnelle geister" mildly malevolent spirits that could be averted by the proper hex symbols.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Hey, Bill, mildly malevolent spirits that could be averted by the proper hex symbols has got to be the very, very best description of the news media I have ever seen! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
Here in Oregon there is a regionalism that's dying as others move in in droves: Pungle is the word. It means to make or gather, depending on context. Ex: I'm gonna pungle up something to keep that gate shut, or Let's pungle up somethin' to eat. I haven't heard it used in several years, since I now live in the urban area, but it used to be common in rural areas in times past.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Quiz time,CK. What do you know about hex symbols?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
your word analyzed, courtesy of the OED:  U.S. colloq.
Also 9 pongale, pungale. [ad. Sp. póngale put it down, f. poner put, give.]
trans. and intr. To contribute, hand over, or pay. Usu. with down or up.
1851 Alta Californian 19 July 2/3 A singular genius+was ‘pongaling down’ huge piles of gold at a monte table. 1854 Pioneer (San Francisco) Apr. 237 An additional slice of territory and its consequent classical influence upon our language, by the introduction of such precious words+as ‘hombre’,+‘pungle’, et id omne genus. 1857 San Francisco Call 6 Jan. 2/2 ‘Pungale down, gentlemen; come, pungale’, as the vingt-et-un lady used to say. 1884 ‘Mark Twain’ Huck. Finn v. 33 ‘I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why’.+ Next day he went to Judge Thatcher's and+tried to make him give up the money. 1910 E. S. Field Sapphire Bracelet xii. 141 I'll have him arrested, and then make him pungle up something handsome before I'll agree not to appear against him. 1959 A. K. Lang in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Mag. Feb. 71/1 The pusher couldn't pungle up Skreen's three hundred. 1975 J. Gores Hammett (1976) xix. 130 Hammett had coffee and pungled up the required fifty cents.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428 |
I oncet had a Architectural History professor who often used the terms "tumbledy-down" and "higgledy-piggledy" to describe buildings, i.e. "Here we have an American interpretation of a tumbledy-down English cottage." and "Note how the turrets and spires are piled up all higgledy-piggledy, to give the church an asymmetric silhouette." They remain two of my favorite words, even if I can rarely find a use for them.
And I thought the Sherwood Personality Test was great fun.
Flatlander
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
"higgledy-piggledy"
When I was small, an aunt used cross her knees, and have me sit astride her upper foot while holding my hands, and sing
a nursery rhyme:
This is the way the lady rides, prim, prim, prim.
This is the way the gentleman rides, trim,trim, trim.
And this is the way the farmer rides, hobbledy gobbledy,
hobbledy gobbledy, gee! ( The last part being a ride very much more violent and erratic.)
I have read the term "dandle" used to describe giving a very small child such a ride.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Snollygosters averted by hex symbols. Every barn in Pennsylvania Dutch territory used to have a hex symbol displayed prominently.They took witchcraft seriously.
"Hexe" means witch, and the symbols mostly had a hexagon inscribed inside a circle, with a wide range of subdividing patterns of triangles. I have wondered what the etymologic relationship is between "Hexe" and "hexagon".
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Hex symbols
What you say about hex symbols, Bill, is accurate, but I would add that the most common design (which includes triangles) is a star, usually 5-pointed. I would be willing to bet that this traditional design is derived from the pentacle, or 5-pointed star, used by magicians (or those claiming to be magicians) in the middle ages for charms and conjurations. This star design also shows up very frequently in quilt patterns; there are a number of well-known, standardized, star patterns for quilts.
P.S. You hardly ever see hex signs anymore, except as parts of a tourist come-on. Indeed, you rarely see a barn painted red any more; apparently it isn't cost-effective.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,331
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
|
