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#47715 11/13/01 08:56 PM
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wwh Offline
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Dear tsuwm: I can't remember where I first found mention of "l'ésprit de l'escalier" It took me a long time to find it in Internet, and then in was buried in series of sites about music groups. It was a couple months later that I found Treppenwitz, can't remember where. It interests me in a way because it is one of the few phrases where German in more succinct than the French.


#47716 11/13/01 08:59 PM
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wwh: I performed a search on Google and entered the search like this:

"Giant's Causeway" trap

With what came up, I found the following information about the trap, a type of volcanic rock, of which the causeway, it turns out, is formed:

PHYSICAL FEATURES
As regards minerals in the county, the sub-soil is basalt or trap, which forms the Giant's causesway on the north coast, clay-slate and limestone; there was coal at Ballycastle, and salt mines near Carrickfergus; and iron ore in the hill region extending from Larne to Cushendall <../Glimpses.htm>. The ore was shipped from Larne, Glenarm, Carnlough and Red Bay to the ports of Cumberland, Wales and Clyde. There are numerous large bogs in the county.


http://www.from-ireland.net/descrs/antrimdescr.htm

Best regards,
WordFriend


#47717 11/13/01 09:08 PM
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Dear WW: I guess the magma is the same, but the outpourings were much more massive in the Siberian, Decccan and other traps, which are really huge, thousands of square miles iin area. So perhaps the big places got noticed and named first, and then it was noticed that the composition of other smaller formations was the same.


#47718 11/13/01 09:18 PM
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the west bank of the Hudson (north river inside of NYC, and this area is) is called the Palisades-- (some old timers will remember an early 1960's R & R hit Palisades Park, named for the same) is a basalt layer that was layed down long, long ago(help me whitman, back in the days of tex rex i think) .. and Up ended -- so it is now perpendicular. it too has the same hexogon crystaization-- but not as regualar as the giants causeway.

the Palisades were being mined for trap rock, and the Rockefellers bought up most of the land, and donated to the state- provide it was made it into parks--there is a Palisades parkway, and rugged trails between the two main parts of the park, Apline landing and Stateline park (the state line of NY/NJ. Most of the park is in NJ. the there is an other out cropping up state.. (a german/dutch name, skrunks? for short?) famous place for rock climbing...

what is nice is they are not quite perpendicular-- but off by 10 to 15 degrees or so.. (not 90, but 80 to 75 degrees. just enough of a slope that you can climb them.. (well i could and did in my youth.. now i am way to much out of shape.) but steep enough to seem almost straight up!


#47719 11/13/01 10:09 PM
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old hand
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Also: having itchy feet = wanderlust?

More likely tinea pedis, or athlete's foot.


#47720 11/13/01 11:02 PM
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And we should have some degree of decorum in not pointing out any heels here.

Aw, shucks!...and I was going to wax interthreadual and offer Achilles heel. (Words from Greek Mythology).

foot-and-mouth disease

And don't forget the formidable foot-in-mouth disease. It's horribly contagious, and there always seems to be outbreaks of varying degrees right on this board!

basalt Basalt is an igneous rock, of troy (as opposed to metamorphic or sedimentary), the oldest and most basic rock formations on the planet, formed by volcanic lava flows. These rocks can date back to the dawn of time and can actually be billions of years old. They're solid and massive, and their upheavals are due to erosion and seismic activity. Fossils are rarely, if ever, found, in this type of rock, because the process of their formation destroys any organic remains. Except, a few years back, some paleomicrobiologists claimed to have found the fossils of microbes in some igneous formations that were 2 billion years old!...however, the jury is still out on that one. [edit: I should have mentioned that the ancient microbial fossils were deemed to be algae]


#47721 11/13/01 11:06 PM
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One of my personal favorites "Jump in feet first." Geronimo!


#47722 11/13/01 11:15 PM
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And thinking about Geronimo reminded me of "The Long Walk" and "The Trail of Tears".


#47723 11/13/01 11:24 PM
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My little wading pool is going dry...

Let's see: There are "feet of clay"
And a Labrador retriever has webbed toes...but can't recall the exact term...

There must be a wealth of terms to describe various birds' feet. Do we have a resident ornithologist on board?

There are toenails, toenail clippers and a pedicure...
And a football, but that's a sport...
Up north there are the Finger Lakes--are there any Toe Lakes?
Well, at least there's Toelstoi and Toelkein...
And pickled pigs' feet, foot stools, and fallen arches...
And what do you call those clamps you put on your shoes to aerate the lawn?
Cowboy boots, and thigh-boots, and rubber boots, and snakeskin boots and wading boots...
Wooden shoes and clogs, high-heeled sneakers and jogging shoes...flip-flops, mules, ruby slippers...Oxfords, spectator shoes, and Cinderella's glass slippers...

How 'bout the pedal-operated sewing machine? Does it have a special name?
And what do you call it when you pace back and forth like a tiger in a cage?
Charleston, Big Apple, Watusi, and the bop...
Tango, calypso, rhumba, samba, and mambo...
Hula and hip-hop, polka and waltz, Bunny Hop and Macarena,
and the Electric Slide...
There are catwalks and ballhooters and spingboards and trampolines...
There are bunions and callouses and blisters...
There's walking down the Primrose Path...

I still would like to know why dogs are hambled...
Oh, my achin' feet!

And speaking of going in feet first in a post above, what about the canonball!!


#47724 11/14/01 12:20 AM
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My little wading pool is going dry...

Judging by the number of topics you brought up after this sentence, I would say it's closer to overflowing than drying up!

Anyway, to my point. I came across a foot reference while listening to Prokofiev's stunning film score for Alexander Nevsky. There is a Latin phrase used as a refrain several times: Peregrinus expectavi pedes meos in cymbalis est. The translation (according to the liner notes) is as follows: "As a wanderer, I expected my feet to be shod in cymbals."

Does anyone recognize this phrase? Is it a quote from somewhere? I'm curious as to its precise meaning and derivation.



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