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Carpal Tunnel
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The term "spinster" is obviously archaic. How about just "maiden"?
Mostly with tongue in cheek, how about just "eligible", the adjective as a noun
for an unwed male?
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OP
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another term that comes to mindThanks, slithy. Me Mum mentioned this term as well this morning - so at last I know what it means! (from you and from her) - I remember hearing my Dad use it but I was that young, I thought he was just being Dad, so I didn't ask him what he meant....  All these stills of spindles and distaffs are driving me crazy! I've seen women sitting and spinning at wheels, at living museums like Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, Ontario; but I can't picture how these hand spindles are used. Is there a site out there with some video of a demonstration, perchance? (I ask because I haven't the foggiest what to google to get a moving picture of a certain thing....and it's late and I'm tired and I'm going to bed! so, ahem, am asking others to do my homework for me....  ) Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear MG: here is URL with lots of pictures, if you click on button at top next to far right. Maybe your vision is enough better than mine that you can get more out of them than I could. http://kws.atlantia.sca.org/pictures.html All pictures can be enlarged.
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veteran
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Hi again, MG! Traditionally both bachelor and spinster relate to occupation, don't they? Somebody (I think Bill) has already mentioned that "spinster" only became derogatory when applied to old maids - the implication being that they were undesirable as wives. Incidentally I'll bet the derogatory usage was created as much by women as men  How about just "maiden"?As long as you're making the (archaic) virginal component optional, Bill.. how about just "eligible"Hmmm, nice. "S/he's an eligiblee"  In Shrek the magic mirror presents the princesses as bachelorettes  . Is that tongue-in-cheek or in some sense a standard usage over the Pond?
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Re: Fisk's bachelorette question ~
If I remember the movie correctly, it was intended as a parody of The Dating Game, an awful excuse for a game show that's been on for ages. It may have had some integrity back in the day, but my friend Ann scored an appearance as a bachelorette about 5 years ago, and she was very candid with me about the process... it's now purely a vehicle for people to be "discovered" in Hollywood.
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here is URL with lots of pictures
Thanks Bill....My eyesight probably is better than yours, but I still had a hard time with these pix. I'm still a bit in the dark cos these ladies is all holding the spindle t'other way to how I supposed it was held. I still can't quite picture how it's done so I guess I'm not a spinster!
hahahahahahahaha!
I crack myself up.
No, really - how the heckinheimer do the blasted hand spindle thingies work? I realise the fabric thread gets wound on somewhere, but how does it get fed onto where it gets wound to, which hand do you use to hold what, what do you turn (the spindle presumably - or is it your hand?), and if you're using both hands where do you put the distaff?
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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Carpal Tunnel
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" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil
not, neither do they spin."
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Carpal Tunnel
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the set of pictures with Lady Soibhan, were the best...
you hold the unspun wool, in you right hand and a bit of what is on the spindle, you drop the spindle and use you left hand to set it spinning.. as it spins, you play out the rat of unspun wool.. until the spindle is almost to the floor. You unhook the yarn, wrap it round the shaft below the bob, except for a bit that you hook on to the hook a the top, and take an other roll (rat) of wool, and start the spindle spinging again... repeat for an eternity, and you will have a skein of wool, after 4 or 5 eternities, you will have enough wool to knit a sweater.
we forget how much effort went into spinning and clothes production. (knitting, for many years was the mark of cheap clothing. it was faster than weaving, and required less fitting.)
the famous statue (armless) of venus de milo, it thought to be a woman spinning (her right arm is held high, to draw the thread, her left, low, spinning the spindle.)
greek woman, (of whom we know so little) created yards and yards of cloth, that was bartered for gold, silver, iron, tin, and copper..minerals that were in short supply naturally. keep to their houses as virtual prisoners, they spun and wove, and create the wealth of greece. (this is evident because there are no mentions what so ever as spinning being a craft that a man was occupied at-- and all the wool form all those sheep had to dealt with by someone!-- we also know of penelopie, who sat by her loom, and wove.)
being a spinster is not all that bad a thing!
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enthusiast
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Let us go in peace to love and serve the board
We used to have spinsters, MG. Now we have spinmeisters. Spinmeisters spin words instead of cotton.
You're a bit of a spinmeister yourself, MG. A U.S. politician [was it Rockefeller?] used to end his speeches with an invocation to "the brotherhood of man in the fatherhood of God". Before long, the press described this ventilation as "bomfog".
"Peace", "Love" and "Service" seems to be the essence of your message, MG. Maybe we can shorten it to "PLS" ... to please everyone.
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Dear wordminstrel: You play/sing your tune/song and I'll sing mine, 'k?! Let us go in peace to love and serve the board plses me. I don't actually feel the need to pls "everyone" (you can pls some of the people, some of the time, but you can't pls all of the people all of the time) and in this, I choose to pls myself. Them as doesn't like it, doesn't need to read it, no? Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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