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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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...fletching means flaying the blubber off a whale carcase...
Not to sidetrack the thread or anything like that, but isn't that "flensing"? with the blubber then rendered in "try pots"? [You don't suppose they were supported on three poles tied together?]
(Moby Dick had that marvelous way of teaching details of whaling technique as a means of pacing the novel...)
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Flensing rings a bell for removal of the whale blubber.
Don't you find it curious, speaking of Melville, that the first line in the novel (i.e., "Call me Ishmael") has a bit of the fish in it?
Boat regards,
WordWhale or just call me "OrdWhael"
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an early word for and arrow was "flower", ;from root "flow" and when victim lay on his back, the arrows shaft with gaudy feathers looked like a bouquet, and that is how we got our word "flower" for pretty blossomsWell, if it's a myth, it's a good one, Bill  It would be great if the original meaning of "bouquet" especially related to the rather gruesome image above. Which would make the word almost enantiodromic.. http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=451
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the correct way to position the arrow is with the cock (feather) upFascinating stuff, Robert - thanks. I still think that if an archer's shot went awry because of feathers (cocks) being misaligned it may have been called a cocked shot. And perhaps if the shot span upwards (would that be because of the uppermost cock getting caught?) the archer would say the shot had been cocked up. So if you treat "cock" as a (derogatory) verb rather than noun cock-up would be a shortened version of cocked up - and the latter is still in common usage here: "This is really cocked up" = "This is a real cock-up" Total conjecture, but to me this has a real ring of plausibility about it. Which simply means that I like it  Fisk
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old hand
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isn't that "flensing"?
thanks wofa - I think you're right. Typing the original post, my brain ran away with me again. (that's okay, my brain and I like each other a lot)
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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my brain and I like each other a lotI suspect mine has tired of my company - but it doesn't have the heart to tell me. 
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old hand
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but it doesn't have the heart to tell me.That's okay Fishie - I bet your heart wouldn't have a mind to do it....!  Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sad that Jubilee 2000 in the Holy Land amounted to so little.
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