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#45740 10/24/01 05:00 PM
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In an article on anthropology, I ran into a word appropriate for upcoming holiday.
not in dictionaries I have access to, but easy to guess: "guising"
Let's have some others.


#45741 10/24/01 05:46 PM
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#45742 10/24/01 05:56 PM
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Nope, it's a slightly technical word for "masquerading" for ritual purposes.
But when I looked, I found it in a timely advertisement. (Halloween masks)

That one was fairly easy. Here's a tougher one: Who was Grimr?


#45743 10/24/01 06:51 PM
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That's Grimpr's wife!


#45744 10/24/01 06:56 PM
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#45745 10/24/01 07:08 PM
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"Grimr" was said to be one of Odin or Wotan's other names, meaning "Masked Man".

Here's a real toughie: What does "excamation" mean? Probably pretty much a technical term.


#45746 10/25/01 12:25 AM
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The origin of "Trick or Treat"

The secular tradition of trick-or-treating has its roots in both the pagan and
Christian holidays. The practice can be traced to the original Halloween, known
as Samhain, an ancient Celtic New Year's festival during which human and
animal sacrifices were made to the Lord of the Dead and the sun. During
Samhain, after offering a feast to the dead, masked and costumed villagers
representing the souls of the dead paraded to the outskirts of town leading the
ghosts away. In medieval times, Christians dressed as their favorite saints for the
All Hallows procession.

There is also a possible connection with Guy Fawkes celebrations of
post-Renaissance England. In these, children dressed up as the executed
conspirator to beg "a penny for the Guy" from passing strangers. A traditional
Irish custom on Samhain eve was the soliciting of contributions in the name of
Muck Olla, a shadowy Druidic figure who would be sure to wreak vengeance on
the ungenerous. Muck Olla's vengeance gradually became transformed into the
tricks of disappointed human revelers.

Now a word question: How in Sam Hill is "Samhain" pronounced?





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#45748 10/25/01 08:21 AM
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Pronunciation of Samhain is dead tricky. It's one of those that I read in my book on Irish and practise a few times, never sure that I've got it right.

I think it's "sow in", as in the pig family are knocking at the door so let the sow in, but with a nasalized w. Yup, a nasalized w. That's modern Irish. The mutated m was earlier a nasalized v.


#45749 10/25/01 11:47 AM
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Hey, if you can umlaut it you can nasalize it. I always thought of it as a voiced bilabial fricative but then I was just guessing.

Guy Fawkes Day - Nov 5. Interesting that it is closer to the real* cross quarter day than our modern dating of Halloween/All Saints' Eve-Day.

*Real as in strict count from solstice to equinox (Nov 5/6 this year).


#45750 10/25/01 01:16 PM
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Irish Gaelic pronunciation is rather difficult to learn, and for me harder to remember. Needlessly modest NW is as expected correct.

1.Samhain (Celtic)
... in the pagan calendar. Samhain may be pronounced in a number of ways but the most
common pronunciation is "sow-in" (sow rhymes with cow). The modern day ...
http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/ethnic_relig/samhain.html



#45751 10/25/01 07:42 PM
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"Guy" must be a very old name, back to Norman era, when it would have been pronounced hard g "Gee".
Now it is pronounced like "buy", but was it so pronounced at the time of the Gunpowder Plot?


#45752 10/25/01 08:07 PM
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I fear that I have (litterally) a pronounced case of samhainophobia.


#45753 10/25/01 09:17 PM
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Which just goes to prove that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, no matter how litterall you get!



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#45754 10/25/01 09:36 PM
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Dear CK: I was counting on your knowing the eee vs eye answer.

And I am mildly lachrymose that nobody questioned "Sam Hill" I don't have any idea how it originated.

PS I finally found a site about it, but it wasn't worth citing. Most probably antique euphemism for "hell".


#45755 10/25/01 09:54 PM
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One of the usual games at Halloween parties for kids used to be bobbing for apples. I learned something new from that URL.
For example, bobbing for apples was a marriage divination that indicated
who (the first person to bite an apple) would marry first in the coming year.

Sounds as though that ought to have been restricted to young adults instead of kids.


#45756 10/26/01 12:20 AM
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Here is a URL with information about Guy Fawkes, including assertion he was also called "Guido" which suggests he pronounced his name the modern French way.

In 1605, Guy Fawkes (also known as Guido - yes, really) and
a group of conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of
Parliament.
http://www.bonefire.org/guy/index.html



#45757 10/26/01 02:07 AM
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"Sam Hill" is indeed a euphemism for hell. My father used to ask, rhetorically, "What the Sam Hill blazes do you mean by .... ?"


#45758 10/26/01 07:31 AM
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Around 1600 the long /i:/ sound of Guy, Guido (and of buy, blind, mice, etc.) was in the middle of changing to the modern /ai/. Authentic performances of Shakespeare, and of songs from the same period, use the diphthong /@i/ (where @ = schwa).

The effect is something like the French oeil.

A similar vowel is still heard in the West Country of England, where people will call you moey loev at first meeting.


#45759 10/26/01 07:47 AM
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My dictionary (Chambers) marks guiser as (Scot.) and also gives guisard. These it glosses by the equally evocative word mummer. However, Alan Garner wrote a book The Guiser, I think of short stories, folk tales. I'm a huge Garner fan but to my shame I haven't read this. But he's very much a Cheshire writer, so I'd expect his use of 'guiser' to be local for him.

The splendidly snappy word geezer is a variant of 'guiser' too.

The root is wise, meaning 'way, manner', as in 'in this wise' and 'clockwise'; taken from Germanic into French with the usual change to a gw- sound. (I always wonder if that was Breton influence.)

A guise is a way of behaving, a manner or mannerism, an external appearance: and thus by extension such an appearance that one is capable of adopting or dissembling or dis-guising.

Well I enjoy language. :-)


#45760 10/26/01 08:05 AM
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Guising is the word used by children in Edinburgh, always guising, never "trick or treating".

Reading a discussion of Halloween in another thread, I noticed mention of its ancient origins. I have been having a discussion with a neighbour for a while. It seems that observance of the tradition is quite recent in some areas. I grew up in Lancashire which has a large Irish population and where the Pendle witches were part of local folklore http://members.aol.com/NutterWV1/PENDLE.htm, so as children, we always dressed up, ducked for apples and went "trick or treating" with costumes and a large stuffed "Guy" not only for sweets but for money (largely frowned on now that people recognise the danger of children setting off their own fireworks) to help pay for the fireworks for bonfire night on the 5th, the two events were interconnected. We made our lanterns (I've just remembered that they were made from swedes or turnips)), on Halloween and took them with us to the bonfire night parties on the 5th. In other parts of England, certainly amongst friends of mine living further south or maybe without a large Irish population, there doesn't seem to be much history of the celebration of Halloween, so although the origins of the event are undoubtably ancient, it has grown greatly in recent years.

#45761 10/26/01 08:12 AM
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>Would love to know which species of turnips those were, for the ones we grow here on the farm would provide only elfin-sized lanterns.

I think that part of the problem is that in Scotland and the North East of England (not so sure about Ireland), turnips are swedes and swedes are turnips, so are bigger and with a flat bottom, more like the size of small pumpkins. I have seen larger turnips around, maybe our wet boggy soil helps them grow bigger!

According to the following site, swedes are also known as swedish turnips and were developed in the seventeen century http://www.vegetables.co.nz/veg/veg.cfm?i=46



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#45763 10/26/01 11:41 AM
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The splendidly snappy word geezer is a variant of 'guiser' too.
Nicholas! A beloved Brit-speaking friend of mine pronounces the word geyser as geezer, whereas I and everyone I know of here says it with the long-i sound, as I would say guiser. Geyser isn't related to guiser, is it?
Why the difference in pronunciation, do you know?


#45764 10/26/01 01:37 PM
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Isn't that contracted from samhainella?



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#45765 10/26/01 02:06 PM
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the "swedes" that Jo (jmh) talks about are the kind of turnip known in NY (and elsewhere in US, but i am not sure if everywhere) as Rutabaga's. they are large, heavy and yellowish, with a purplish top. rutabaga is the swedish name for them. what local vegetable stores (shops) call turnips are smaller (about the size of a large beet) and have a shape similar to a beet, (globular, but with a tapering point at the bottom) and white flesh. turnips also come, like beets, with the greens attached, and the same are also eaten.

(they are one of my favorite veggies, as kids, we even ate them raw!)
this is not a food thread!
this is not a food thread!
this is not a food thread!



#45766 10/26/01 02:26 PM
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Dear jmh: I am brokenhearted that you did not comment of pronunciation of that guy Guy Fawkes. Does his first name rhyme with pee or with pie?


#45767 10/26/01 02:35 PM
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>I am brokenhearted that you did not comment of pronunciation of that guy Guy Fawkes. Does his first name rhyme with pee or with pie?

Mend your heart dear Bill, I did not reply because I thought you might like a definitive answer, rather than a personal one. In my experience his first name rhymes with pie but in his day, who knows?



#45768 10/26/01 03:16 PM
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#45769 10/26/01 03:53 PM
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Sounds like it is one of those Markwis/Markee (Marquis), fillet/filley (fillet) kind of words!


#45770 10/26/01 04:26 PM
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Dear jmh: now you are prolonging my torment. How do you pronounce the first name of the Gunpowder plotter? Take pity on me, please!


#45771 10/26/01 04:29 PM
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How do you pronounce the first name of the Gunpowder plotter?

For that matter, how do you pronounce his *last name?


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>This is probably too obvious to note here, but I'll go ahead and obvliate[sic]:

I'm *sure that was just a typo/oversight on your part, but obviously the word wanted here is obviate, to make obvious.
-ron o.


#45773 10/26/01 04:42 PM
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I have never heard it pronounced any other way than G(eye) Forks! Heaven knows what his friends called him.

The sanitised version of the poem in the website listed by Bill is:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!

the version that I grew up with was:

Remember, Remember the fifth of November
The terrible gunpowder plot
A naughty young fella
Got caught in a celler
and ... cor what a hiding he got!


(Trans: a good hiding is a beating)


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tsuwm ::& Faldage: your ignorance is excusable, failing to conceal it is questionable. UK experts, where are you?


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Dear jmh: Thank you, thank you. I was afraid it was one of those Brit things they keep concealed so they can secretly mock US ignorance of their arcana.


#45776 10/26/01 04:59 PM
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Which leaves US'ns wondering how a Sassenach transplanted to Caer Edinn would pronounce *that.


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>tsuwm ::: your ignorance is excusable, failing to conceal it is questionable.

wot da #$&%... I was jest responding to someone else's digression. keep your singlemindedness to yerself, bud!
-joe bfstplk


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obvliate

the word wanted here is obviate

Or perhaps the word in the wind is a clever anagram masquerading as a typo.


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And sometimes one wonders both in flatline and in threadnodist modes to which post a response is being made. Excusably ignorant


#45780 10/26/01 06:13 PM
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caer edin; Carriden in Linlithgowshire ????


#45781 10/26/01 06:23 PM
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Caer Edinn

Carriden

Dae ye no live in Edinburgh?


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That was where I erred, tsuwm.


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but obviously the word wanted here is obviate, to make obvious.

*chuckle*. nice one, ron.

but seriously... that word seems to cause a considerable deal of confusion in that it often can't necessarily be defined by context; eg: "The customer left the service bay in a huff, threatening lawsuit and spewing venom as to the ineptitude of the mechanic who'd left oily footprint stains on his leather, obviating a telephonic customer satisfaction survey."

it just seems to be a strange word, but i still use it often because i can't think of a suitable non-phrase alternative.


oh, and at the risk of causing general panic by returning the thread to its origin, Rubrick used the word "Hallowe'en" the other day, and i've never seen it spelled that way. where does the contraction come from? (apologies if this is a yart; i'm about 3000 threads behind these days)

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a considerable deal of confusion
actually®, re: obviate, to meet and dispose of or do away with (a thing); to clear out of the way; to prevent by anticipatory measures

I neglected to use the [tongue-in-cheek] then; you will have noticed that I usually utilize (or use) the word 'obviousize' in that context. imagine the ensuing chaos in the event....
-ron o.


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The apostrophe takes the place of a "v" in earlier spelling.


#45786 10/26/01 07:35 PM
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Back in the twenties, there were no treats, just tricks. Volunteer firemen set fire to houses abandoned on unprofitable farms, so as to make a few bucks putting out the fire. Rockets left over from the Fourth of July were laid down in gutters, setting fire to a hundred yards of accumulated leaves. Outhouses were tipped over. A favorite of mine was taking heel plate off shoe last, tucking it under shingle of house with long strong thread attached, hiding, and stroking taut thread with rosined piece of leather. It would make a noise that sounded as though the wall was being destroyed. Owner would come out, not be able to see anything, go back into house. Repeat ad lib.
It was not until the early thirties that an elderly couple from Chicago brought the treat idea to our town. We thought they were trying to trick us, meaning to beat the bejesus out of us if we let them get ahold of us.
When we found out they were sincere, the new custom was avidly accepted by the kids. Not necessarily by all adults. I remember a Saturday Evening Post cover, showing some kids being frightened by householder opening door wearing a threatening devil mask.
How about somebody else recounting Halloween anecdotes?


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Ah, that will be the Welsh, you’ll be wanting to talk to our Maverick, he’ll know it as "Caer Eiddyn".

Historians like Rhu may prefer our name from the Middle Ages “Castellum Puellarum”

Myself, I’ll stick with 'din Eidyn' (Eidyn's Hill Fort), or is that a place in the land of the kiwi?



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Back in the twenties, there were no treats, just tricks.
I have to back up Dr. Bill here ... If there was a neighbor who disliked kids and always complained to parents -- we would ring their doorbells and run away...this was the mid- 1930s. Or kids ran soap over windows. If someone was particularly disliked the boys would use soft wax which was the devil to remove - and sometimes trees and bushes were draped in toilet paper causing no end of fuss trying to remove it, especially if it rained and paper got wet. Pretty tame stuff.
First I heard or saw of "Trick or Treat" : it was a slogan in a newspaper ad for a store selling Halloween candies! We quickly saw the advantages to that and went candy-collecting by ringing doorbells and yelling Trick or Treat. The wiser grownups were also quick to see the advantages of giving candy rather than having tricks played on them.
In the early T-or-T days we would get donuts or apples, cupcakes, cookies or candies. Now the candy has to be packaged.
US Rep Edith Nourse Rogers lived in our town http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASrogers.htm Mrs. Rogers gave quarters to children who rang her doorbell ... need I say the poorer children of the town were lined up at her door! A quarter (US 25 cent coin) in those days paid for your lunch time milk at school for a week or bought five big candy bars, or five soft drinks!
I do not remember any Trick or Treating during the war years but maybe I was just getting too old to indulge in childish pursuits! I was a very grown up 13 in 1942.


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jmh commented some time ago: According to the following site, swedes are also known as swedish turnips and were developed in the seventeen century and gave a url to a New Zealand website ...

Swedes are large turnips, of that there is no doubt. Most New Zealanders north of the Clutha/Molyneux River (and that's nearly 99% of the population) wouldn't want to see them on their plates, however. They are most considered to be cattle food; however there is the odd philistine in more northerly parts who actually likes the muck. My pater, for one. Mashed swede usually. The smell of cooked swede is something I will be the better for its never passing my nostrils again .....

yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Jo quoth (her, again?): Myself, I’ll stick with 'din Eidyn' (Eidyn's Hill Fort), or is that a place in the land of the kiwi?

Yes, and we have a lot to be defensive about there!





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>This is very mysterious to me--the idea of human beings looking at a turnip and thinking, "Oh, that would make such a great lantern, perfect for Halloween!" Bizarre. There's got to be a lot more to the story.

Well, I suppose that a group of parents got together, over a cup of tea and wondered how to amuse the children and decorate the house as the nights drew in. "We have nothing," said one peasant "how about giving the children a few sharp knives and vegetables to play with," said one, "those new fangled potatoes are a bit too precious," said another, "all we really have are a few old turnips, see what they can do with those ..."

Isn't necessity the mother of invention!


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Never having encountered a water-heater designated a geyser, I've never had to get used to saying it. I think I'd say geezer, but embarrassed that it sounds just like geezer.

My problem is that I know how to pronounce the Icelandic geysir, from which it comes, so I call that a gay-seer. Perhaps other talk about all the hot geezers of Iceland, I don't know.


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Jo says, Isn't necessity the mother of invention!
Also, Jo: in the context of small children to be kept occupied, "Invention is the necessity of Mother!"


#45794 10/27/01 05:47 PM
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This URL is to Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which should be good reading for kids on Halloween.

http://www.angelfire.com/wi2/legendwashington/


#45795 10/27/01 06:36 PM
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Re: Link

Thanks, I've only got as far as the squirrel-shooting bit, I'll file it away for when I have time.



#45796 10/27/01 06:51 PM
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>Why turnips ...

Ok Here is another version. I had ocurred to me that the item was featured in a 1780 edition of "Changing Rooms" but I couldn't find the website. I did find this though:

The Origin of Jack O'Lanterns
The tradition of making Jack O'Lanterns originated in Ireland. They were NOT carved from pumpkins, but from rutabagas, potatoes, turnips, beets and other vegetables.

The Irish legend of 'Stingy Jack' tells of a man so evil and mean he was not allowed in heaven. In fact, he was so demented he played tricks on the devil, who then wouldn't even allow him to enter Hell.

So, when Stingy Jack died he was doomed to roam the earth at night. He carried a turnip lantern with a hot, glowing coal inside, and he soon became known as 'Jack of the Lantern'... or Jack O'Lantern.

Thus began the ritual of placing Jack O'Lanterns in windows and at doors to scare away Stingy Jack and other spooky spirits that are said to aimlessly walk the earth after dark.
http://www.wagsouth.com/hdays/ween2.html


#45797 10/27/01 11:18 PM
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My cars like that. I have maupassant me than I pass them



TEd
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I wonder how accurate were the Halloween sequences in the 1944 film Meet me in St Louis which was set in 1904?


#45799 10/28/01 11:40 AM
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JMH - you mentioned "rutabagas"....wassat???

BTW, are you US'ns on the Board aware we don't do Halloween in OZ? (Despite the ever increasing efforts of retailers to introduce it so as to sell more greeting cards, candies etc). Suspect it's only a recent phenomenon in other Commonwealth countries as well (excluding Canada).

stales


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...we don't do Halloween in OZ?
Good for you-all! Keep up that independent spirit that's so obvious in all of you. Halloween is nothing but commercialism, here. We of the television generation are all too susceptible to the "Your life is miserable unless you have this" tactic...
============================================================

Well now, I just made an interesting discovery: most of the time, I use blue "ink" to indicate quotations. I'm getting a bit rushed, and when I previewed the above, saw that I had typed [o----e] but [/b-ue]---and my next line still appeared in black!


#45801 10/28/01 01:58 PM
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Dear Stales: Since the Irish brought Halloween to US, how did they failed to do so in Oz? The kids in Oz should go on strike! It just ain't fair!


#45802 10/28/01 02:15 PM
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I think the best part about Hallowe'en is the costume party. Many adults let go and be someone different, hiding behind their costumes. I attended one last night in an old potato chip factory. It was appropriately scary and everyone was asked to bring a dish to throw. Safety glasses were provided and I got quite good at side-arming jelly glasses! Viva Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Consuelo!


#45803 10/28/01 02:26 PM
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stales, Jo mentioned swedes, a kind of turnip developed in sweden and used a cattle food. I mentioned that in eastern US, this vegetable is called a rutabaga. CK is with the majority, in thinking this not a commestable, but i am with his da, and think mashed rutabagas to be a winter treat. (no accounting for taste is there?)

Only we don't usually specify rutabagas, we just call them turnips.. or sometimes yellow turnips.


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Just read an article in newspaper
about playing harmless tricks on the
children who visit your house.
Lots of complicated instructions
about making stuff BUT ...
Here's an easy one -
*If you live where leaves fall from trees
take any bubble wrap you have,
put it on the walkway to your door
and cover with leaves ...
makes a great noise
when children come to your door!
So as not to scare the really little ones,
I wear a white dress with sparkles on it
-- a really old party dress --
and put a sign on the door
"A GOOD witch lives here!"
(cackling insanely ...)

(said I'd never mention wide posts again but this is really annoying mumble mumble)

#45805 10/28/01 03:54 PM
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#45806 10/28/01 04:16 PM
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our Maverick, he’ll know it as "Caer Eiddyn".

indeed®

Caer is a common part of Welsh town names, such as Caerleon, Caerphilly... and my favourite is the local town of Carmarthen, which derives from Caer Myrddin = Merlin's Castle. The magic of language

we don' need no steenkin' turneeps...


#45807 10/28/01 05:09 PM
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Dear WW: here is a site about your LifeSaver chewing:

Triboluminescence
Triboluminescence What happens when you crush a Wint-O-Green Lifesaver in a dark
room? WARNING!!! Wear safety goggles if you try this! Triboluminescence ...
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/9911/tribo.htm
More Results From: www.geocities.com


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#45809 10/28/01 08:04 PM
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Dear WW: Careful with the dictionary. There is a word close by that would have all the bluestockings pecking at me if I mentioned it.(rhetorical device, can't remember name.)

And incidentally, nobody has yet guessed or found out what "excamation" means.As a clue, a very large ethnic group in India is having serious problem because of once numerous avian species now greatly diminished.


#45810 10/28/01 08:45 PM
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#45811 10/28/01 08:49 PM
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Why do demons and ghouls always hang out together?


#45812 10/28/01 08:55 PM
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Because demons are a ghoul's best fiend. Witch raises a question about when they have lunch. Are they goblin? And if the ghoul gets pregnant from the encounter is she an ex-specter?



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Dear WW: Here is another clue:

2.ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Rare Birds, Indeed | 11/13/2000
... rise in AIDS INDIA: Way of Death Parsis in Bombay rely on vultures to consume
their corpses, but now the scavengers themselves may be dying out CAMBODIA ...
http://www.cnn.com/ASIANOW/time/magazine/2000/1113/india_vulture.html


#45814 10/28/01 09:00 PM
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Two little old ladies were sitting on the front porch having tea. The only sound besides the occasional sip at the tea was the creak, creak, creak of the rocking chair.

Then one of the old gals stopped rocking and turned to her friend. "Do you still get hankerings for sex?"

"I sure do," cackled the other.

"Well, what do you do about it?'

"usually I just suck on a Lifesaver."

There was a long silence, followed by, "Who do you get to drive you to the beach?"




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Dear WW: I don't want to be mean enough to keep you guessing any longer. This is the only place I have been able to find the word: I just found out by using magnifying glass that I mistook "r+n" for "m" I am indeed contrite for having committed Irish Bull due to my vision problem.

The custom of excarnation, that is placing the dead on an elevated platform or hanging them from trees, is found over an
immense area that includes a large part of Central and Northern Asia, as well as part of Africa. But to wrap or sew the dead
inside animal skins is a much more specific custom. The parallel with widespread Eurasian resurrection rituals, based on the
collection of the bones wrapped in the skin of dead animals, is evid


#45816 10/28/01 09:29 PM
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#45817 10/29/01 12:08 AM
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WW - note your use of "eskimaux" - wondering why you weren't consistent in using this style of spelling for "flaux" later in the sentence?

stales


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Dear WW: fool Stales by editing "Esquimaux" to "Inuit" which is what the native Alaskans call themselves.

I searched for "Eskimoses rub noses" but didn't find anythibg suitable for the board. I sure did find some things unsuitable for the board.


#45819 10/29/01 06:30 AM
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When I was a child growing up just outside London in the sixties, Halloween was just an occasion for creepy films on the telly. I was only vaguely aware of trick or treat and pumpkin lanterns as USn customs read about in books or seen on TV programmes from across the Atlantic. Guy (rhymes with buy) Fawkes (rhymes with talks) night was much more important.

Bingley


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#45820 10/29/01 06:35 AM
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What are Wintogreen Lifesavers? And why would people be eating something that is so damaging to other people's eyesight that they need safety goggles?

Bingley


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For the Parsis (same word as farsi/Persian, they were Zoroastrians who migrated from Persia to India after the Muslim invasions), earth and fire are sacred elements not to be polluted with decaying dead flesh, so they leave their dead on Towers of Silence for birds of prey.

Bingley


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#45823 10/29/01 11:35 AM
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Esquimaux

There's a place on Vancouver Island called Esquimalt but it's pronounced "ess-kweye-malt", I think. Anyway, Eskimos are called Inuit now ("the people"), because that's what they call themselves. Seems fair to me!


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How does Jo pronounce forks?

An put it in symbols a puir US'n kin unnerstan.


#45826 10/29/01 03:23 PM
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well, if you'd spelt it right...

Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 11:06:48 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: today's wwftd is... excarnate
to deprive or strip of flesh [obs]


#45827 10/29/01 05:08 PM
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Dear tsuwm: Let's be fair. My spelling is a hell of a lot better than average, but my vision is well below. This goddam font makes an "r" before an "n" look so closely like an "m" that I mistook it not once but about twenty times.

Please don't excarnate me for such a small, and corrected error.


#45828 10/29/01 05:49 PM
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>Let's be fair.

fair?? after you chided unsuspecting folk for giving up too easily on your misspell, why would I be fair?


#45829 10/29/01 06:12 PM
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But tsuwm, if he hadn't so typed, you wouldn't have had so much fun chiding him! (I shall of course, following dr. bill's practice, deliberately insert for your amusement strategic typos into my own posts.)


#45830 10/29/01 07:49 PM
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All this talk of excarnation calls to mind the horrific practices of corte de corbata, corte de mica, and corte de franela which are detailed in the first of Louis de Bernieres' trilogy of tragicomic novels. I've been meaning to ask if anyone can shed some light on another method of torture referenced therein: "bocachiquiar". Google comes up empty, and I can only get as far in translation as to think that perhaps it has something to do with the mouth.

Can anyone help?


#45831 10/29/01 09:22 PM
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gymkana, in her latest incarnation, seems fascinated with excarnation. I would have thought that an ex-carnation was a dead one. Never mind.

If'n y'all are interested in the Parsis - and they have an interesting culture - I suggest you read "The Crow Eaters" by Bapsi Sidhwa. It's a novel, and it's about the Homer Simpson of the Parsi world, one Faredoon (Freddy) Junglewallah and his family. Sidhwa is a Parsi herself and succeeds in taking the mickey out of her culture while at the same time leaving you sympathetic to it and a damned sight more knowledgeable about it than you were before you read the book. You laugh with the characters rather than at them.

I reviewed the book for the local newspaper many years ago, and it's one of about twenty hardbacked review books I didn't pass on to the local library immediately. Or sooner if possible in many cases.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#45832 10/30/01 04:25 AM
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In reply to:

WintoGreen is just the marketing name for the white candy with the hole in it that is one of the many forms of LifeSavers.


So Lifesavers are USn Polo mints? But I've never noticed any strange optical phenomena from chewing a Polo mint, although admittedly I've never taken a hammer to one to crush it.

Bingley



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#45833 10/30/01 09:57 AM
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#45834 10/30/01 03:08 PM
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Do Polo Mints have Prince Charles's royal warrant?

P.S. I don't think they are exactly the same as wintergreen Life Savers, but close. Send me an address in PM and I'll mail you a pack for Christmas!


#45835 10/30/01 03:46 PM
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fwiw, purloined from somewhere: You can actually(sic) get almost all crystal sugar candy to give you a bit of light when it is crushed. This was first noticed in Italy in the seventeenth century. But for most crystal candy it is a rather dim light. It takes wintergreen to really light up your life.


#45836 10/31/01 06:24 AM
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The secular tradition of trick-or-treating has its roots in both the pagan and Christian holidays.
This is my first Hallowe'en on the West Coast in British Columbia, wwh. I experienced every other Hallowe'en in south-western Ontario where our traditions are the same as anything I have seen in Michigan. I was surprised to learn that Fireworks are a big deal out here on Hallowe'en. Not just sparklers but the whole 'works including community pyrotechnic displays. Is this a West Coast thing or just a British Columbia thing?


#45837 10/31/01 11:21 AM
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Is this a West Coast thing or just a British Columbia thing?

I can't quite answer that, but I can guess it has something to do with the weather. In Manitoba and northern Alberta (where I spent my childhood Hallowe'ens), it's usually cold enough that you need to wear your snowsuit under your costume. I can't see it being much fun to stand around outside playing with fireworks in such weather.

Then again, on New Years' Eve in Winnipeg there are always fireworks downtown, and the temperature is often -30°C, so maybe that's not a good argument at all. Oh well, I tried.


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And a concatenated coruscation of Catherine wheels, to celebrate plutarch's posting again.


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How does Jo pronounce forks?

Ah kin guess itud be bout laik the forks who live on the hill


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Mieux vaut tard que jamais.


#45841 10/31/01 11:16 PM
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And a concatenated coruscation of Catherine wheels, to celebrate plutarch's posting again.
Concatenating in the spirit of your coruscations, wwh, here is a quote which I admire ... which you might enjoy as well.
"May the scintillations of his wit be like the coruscations of summer lightning, lambent but innocuous."
Sorry I can't give the author credit.


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When I was in the Philippines there was a kind of lightning I have never seen here. At night there were always huge cumulous clouds like enormous creampuffs overhead that would light up brilliantly often enough that a flashlight was unnecessary when walking in the dark. It made no noise. I do not know the physics of it, but I suppose in the hot climate convection currents inside clouds built up sufficient charge to produce diffuse discharge.


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#45844 11/01/01 02:36 AM
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I'm not postive I have right name for those clouds. Dictionary says cumulous are flat and black on bottom. Those in Manila were not really flat on bottom, and they were pure white. On the troopship we used to sail under clouds that had rain coming down out of them and their bottoms were flat and black. We'd all get soaked, but fifteen minutes later we would be dry again. Actually we welcomed getting rain soaked, because we did not have fresh water showers. And in the tropics it was smart to bathe in rain with clothes on, the rain came down so hard. If it hit family jewels it was rather painful. And it did the laundry.


#45845 11/01/01 05:00 AM
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Perhaps Bill means sheet lightning. This is lightning that discharges in a higher layer of clouds and is grounded by clouds below. No discharge reaches the ground, but the clouds light up. It's the most common form of lightning where I come from originally. Fork lightning which hits the ground was most uncommon.

I've actually seen the effect occur from an aircraft at night over Indonesia. Spooky!



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#45847 11/01/01 08:57 AM
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>Send me an address in PM and I'll mail you a pack for Christmas!

Oh, can I have some too? I haven't got a clue what they are.

In return, I'll send you a fisherman's friend!



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How does Jo pronounce forks?

Like Fawkes. Is there an alternative? (Thank you for your brave attempt Maverick, it sounded faintly Geordie)


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>I was surprised to learn that Fireworks are a big deal out here on Hallowe'en. Not just sparklers but the whole 'works including community pyrotechnic displays. Is this a West Coast thing or just a British Columbia thing?

Maybe they are "cherry picking", rolling together bonfire night and halloween. Our bonfire night has bonfires from the tiny to the enormous (I think Shona put in some links last year), similarly the fireworks run from a few friends clubbing together to run a small display in the back garden for the tinies to huge pyrotechnic displays.

Last night we had friends round for halloween, one couple were from Philadelphia and another from Melbourne. The Australians took their children guising and found it very interesting as they had never celebrated halloween before, they particularly found it strange to be effectively, asking strangers for sweets. I hadn't realised that fireworks were banned in Australia and they had never celebrated bonfire night either. The Americans were suprised that the children were all dressed on a halloween theme (not as Disney characters, for example), we had some very spooky ghosts, especially the current fashion for a hood which makes you look as if you have no face (it is a one way gauze). Incidentally, I went into the local supermarket yesterday and the staff were dressed in a similar fashion but because they blended in and no-one really looked at them, it felt like this really was the land of Harry Potter, we were all muggles barely noticing them amongst us. The USns were also suprised that the children arrived with jokes (generally on a spooky theme) and songs to treat us before we treated them, we had some great entertainment. They said that in their part of the USA children all sing the same song.

I think that Edinburgh has had a long tradition of guising and seems to avoid the worst aspects of over-commercialisaion. I remember the little boy next door being far more excited about Halloween than Christmas.


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How does Jo pronounce forks?

Like Fawkes. Is there an alternative?

Well, for starters you could at least pretend there was an R in there somewhere. You know, R like in Ralph? You Brits are so hot to accuse US'ns of Reader's Digest spelling® but you grab all those letters that you don't even bother to use. You don't leave us any even if we *do pronounce them. Sheesh!


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>Well, for starters you could at least pretend there was an R in there somewhere.

Oh, I do pronounce the "r", it is just that you guys can't hear it! I suggest a hearing test.

If the "r" was missing it would sound like "fox" and we'd be in the feral thread with lots of angry Ozzies (they are very fond of the European fox and its favourite snack the European rabbit), then where would we be?

In forks, the "r" sounds just like an "r" should, are you suggesting that I speak Cornish?

Now back to some other good words: Aluminium, favourite, orientate ... mumble, mumble, lets see how many people I can upset today!


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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hey, NY'ers do that too-- Moshula Parkway, is Marsh a loo Parkway the R is soft, but it is most definately there, and the A in the middle is a a schwa, (but most definately not a U!)

just cause you don't need an R spell the word, doesn't mean it doesn't have an R when you say it. there are plenty of other word we NY'ers add the sound of R to, but i can never think of any of them.. it takes out of Towner's to hear them..
Hey Faldage, get the ASp in here.. she has lived here, and i bet she will be able think of lots of them.

there is an alternate way to say the name, Ma shu la-- but this is less common.
(i have a PM somewhere, from someone.. i know who, its one of the MD's on the board, who lives in Worster MA, and his name is... is... who told me, Who Moshula was! I'll go look it up, and come back and edit..)


#45853 11/01/01 03:52 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Preliminary googling indicates that better results will be had using the spelling mosholu.


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