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#74701 07/01/02 05:18 PM
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Fast Girl or Young Lady (A) is one who talks slang, assumes the airs of a knowing one, and has
no respect for female delicacy and retirement. She is the ape of the fast young man.

I hope and pray that no AWADtalk members are "fast girls". Good for a laugh.Rember, the Dictionary
of Phrase and Fable from which these items were taken is over a hundread years old.


#74702 07/01/02 05:23 PM
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Fata Morgana A sort of mirage occasionally seen in the Straits of Messina. Fata is Italian for a "fairy," and the fairy Morgana
was the sister of Arthur and pupil of Merlin. She lived at the bottom of a lake, and dispensed her treasures to whom she liked.
She is first introduced in the Orlando Innamorato as "Lady Fortune," but subsequently assumes her witch-like attributes. In
Tasso her three daughters are introduced.


#74703 07/01/02 07:31 PM
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Fey Predestined to early death. When a person suddenly changes his wonted manner of life,
as when a miser becomes liberal, or a churl good-humoured, he is said in Scotch to be fey,
and near the point of death.

My dictionary still gives this as the first meaning, but I have only seen it used in the second
meaning striange, unusual, otherworldly


#74704 07/01/02 07:47 PM
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Fi or Fie! An exclamation indicating that what is reproved is dirty or indecent. The dung of many animals, as the boar, wolf,
fox, marten, and badger, is called fiants, and the "orificium anale" is called a fi, a word still used in Lincolnshire.
(Anglo-Norman, fay, to clean out; Saxon, afylan, to foul: our defile or file, to make foul; filth, etc.)
The old words, fie-corn (dross corn), fi-lands (unenclosed lands), fi-mashings (the dung of any wild beast), etc., are
compounds of the same word.

Fie on Keiva.


#74705 07/01/02 08:07 PM
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Findon Haddocks Haddocks smoked with green wood. (See Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary, xxvi.)
Findon or Finnon is a village some six miles south of Aberdeen, where haddocks are cured.

I haven't had finnan haddie for years. How about you, wow?



#74706 07/01/02 08:26 PM
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I used to fall
In love with all
Those boys who call
On young cuties
But now I find
I'm all inclined
To keep my mind
On my duties
Since I've begun to share
In such a sweet love affair

Though I'm in love, I'm not above
A date with a duke or a caddie
It's just a pose, 'cause my baby knows
That my heart belongs to daddy

When some good scout, invites me out
To dine om some fine finnan haddie
My baby's sure, his love is secure
Cause my heart belongs to daddy

Yes my heart belongs to daddy
So I simply couldn't be bad
Yes I'm gonna marry daddy
Da-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ad
If you feel romantic laddy
Let me warn you right from the start
That my heart belongs to daddy
And my daddy belongs to my heart




#74707 07/01/02 08:34 PM
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Fir-cone on the Thyrsus. The juice of the fir-tree (turpentine) used to be
mixed by the Greeks with new wine to make it keep; hence it was adopted as one of
the symbols of Bacchus.

A lecturer on biochemistry told us Roman ladies drank small amounts of turpentine, because
it made their urine smell like lavender. Perhaps this is how they learned it. But when I
asked the lecturer for whose benefit the lavender odor was, he had no answer.


#74708 07/01/02 08:56 PM
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douglas adams, 'fir cone is an anagram of conifer, now don't tell me thats a coincidence!'


#74709 07/02/02 02:59 PM
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Flotsam and Jetson Waifs found in the sea or on the shore. "Flotsam,"
goods found floating on the sea after a a wreck."Jetson," or Jetsam, things
thrown out of a ship to lighten it. (Anglo-Saxon, flotan, to float; French,
jeter, to throw out.) (See Ligan.)

My dictionary does give meaning of "waif" = anything found by chance that
does not have an owner, but I have never seen it used except to mean
a homeless parentless child.


#74710 07/02/02 03:04 PM
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Flowers at Funerals The Greeks crowned the dead body with flowers, and placed flowers
on the tomb also. The Romans decked the funeral couch with leaves and flowers, and
spread flowers, wreaths, and fillets on the tomb of friends. When Sulla was buried as
many as 2,000 wreaths were sent in his honour. Most of our funeral customs are derived
from the Romans; as dressing in black, walking in procession, carrying insignia on the bier,
raising a mound over the grave, called tumulus, whence our tomb.



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