|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
An etymological book tells me that the expression "apple pie order" comes from "a corrupted form of a French label for neatly folded linen," but does not tell me the French phrase. Can one of you with command of French hazzard a guess for me? Thanks.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
The phrase cap a pie (head to foot) springs to mind. How it relates to folded linen is beyond me.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Ha! Haven't folded the sheets for dear old Mom lately, have ya' naughty boy!
{Mumbling to self : These kids, always shluffing off on the chores .... asking kids "Who was your last maid?" mumble mumble, "darn fitted bottom sheets!"}
wow
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Don' know how easy ya got it. When I was a kid we had to get up and walk all the way across the room just to change channels on the Tellyvision set. In the snow and sleet. And it was uphill both ways.
So, wow, you saying you take the head end of the sheet and put it to the foot end?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
you saying you take the head end of the sheet and put it to the foot end?
Center fold first then bottom to top. The resulting center crease makes it easy to see center of sheet when making bed Then, when taking a sheet off shelf having all hems togther eliminates trying to find the top and bottom of the sheets.
wow
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
From puff-pastry? Esp., with an apple filling, for example, (good) danish.
Puff pastry is made by folding and refolding dough, putting butter inbetween the layers. These layers multiply geometrically until, in the end, there are up to several thousand of them. The folding must be done carefully and neatly, or else the butter will run through and spoil the dough. Thus a French apple pastry, or pie(?), might be a confection involving neat folds, like neatly folded linens.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Center fold first then bottom to top. The resulting center crease makes it easy to see center of sheet when making bed Then, when taking a sheet off shelf having all hems togther eliminates trying to find the top and bottom of the sheets.
Et Viola! Capple pie!
Why do you need to see the center of the sheet when you're making the bed? Just take one fitted corner and hook it on an appropriate corner and go from there. Top sheet you just flang out till it lands more or less on the bed and blankets over that. Scrumble then around when you climb in at night. Depending on who you with they gone get all disscrumblfied right quick anyways.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Depending on who you with they gone get all disscrumblfied right quick anyways.Thus you spake to a widow woman? A 72-year-old one at that! Harumph   Guess I am just following Mother's directions for the flat sheets. I like a neatly made bed ... military influences in the family? Of course (fluffing up feathers emoticon) I do not expect others to conform to my high standards. Whatever fluffs your down quilt!  wow
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
"nappes plices" is probably the term you're looking for from http://theatlantic.com/unbound/corby/ck970114.htm: "Apple-pie order A proper chef always keeps her kitchen in apple-pie order: spoons and forks do not fraternize wildly in the cutlery drawer, lids do not wander from their containers, salt shakers do not plummet into the crevice between oven and wall. Such a compulsion for culinary organization is known as apple-pie order, an idiom that may have grown out of how apple pies, in the good old days, were made by carefully arranging apple slices in a highly stylized, vertical pattern (which was then hidden under a crust of dough). Alternatively, the apple pie part of the idiom may have originated as an English corruption of the French phrase nappes plices, meaning folded linen, or as an English corruption of the French phrase cap-a-pie, meaning head to foot (Shakespeare uses this idiom when he has Horatio describe Hamlet's ghostly father as armed cap-a-pie): both French phrases -- nappes plices and cap-a-pie -- are suggestive of minute attention to detail. Whatever its origin, apple-pie order was first recorded in English in the late eighteenth century."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
So you're 72 and widowed-- but your not dead-- you're grown up enough to share your bed with whomever you chose! ---
Its strange how folding linen is one the very few things i do like my mother-- and am rigid about-- I taught my kids how to fold towels and sheets-- and warned them this was not to be triffled with! My ex mother in law didn't understand how i could be so unruffled when my kids did trendy things (my daughter shaved half of all her hair off, my son dyed his hair turquoise blue) even my kids had trouble understanding" Why?"-- but learn to fold sheets as I was taught!
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,344
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
782
guests, and
2
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
