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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Every moning when I perform my march matutinale, and come to places where the sidewalk
corner curb has been removed and replaced with a gentle slope, I have to take couple rapid
short steps because of gravity assist. I have to festinate.
festinate
vt., vi.
< L festinatus, pp. of festinare, to hurry < IE base *bheres, quick > MIr bras, swift6 [Rare] to hurry; speed
adj.
I learned the word when I was perhaps ten years old. My father and I were looking out
the front window, when an elderly lady on sidewalk had her pace accelerate until she had to
head for telephone pole to stop, then slowly accelereated until she came to next telephone pole
to keep her from losing her footing. My father told me that she had had the influenza that
killed so many towards end of WWI, and had Parkinson's Disease as a residual, of which her
involuntary acceleration was a symptom, called festination.
And there is the Latin motto: Festina lente. - Make haste slowly.
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,534 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,534 Likes: 1 |
...sometimes referred to as a "festinating gait," meaning it starts slowly and accellerates to become out of control.
Here's a more recent usage of the root:
Earl: (Tolloller or Mountararat - I forget which) (to Lord Chancellor)
"This gentleman is seen
With a maid of seventeen
A-taking of his dolce far niente "sweet nothings"
And wonders he'd achieve
For he asks us to believe
She's his mother - and he's nearly five-and-twenty!"
Lord Chancellor: (to Strephon)
"Recollect yourself, I pray,
And be careful what you say,
As the ancient Romans said festina lente !
For I really do not see
How so young a girl can be
The mother of a man of five-and-twenty"
-- W S Gilbert, Iolanthe - Act I Finale
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
is that like a "festinating rhythm"? 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,534 Likes: 1 |
I like it!
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,534 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,534 Likes: 1 |
To complete the lyrics, and just because I love Gilbert & Sullivan:
"To say she is his Mother is a bit of utter folly!
(Oh, fie, our Strephon is a rogue!)
Perhaps his brain is addled and he's very melancholy.
(Taradiddle, taradiddle, tol-lol-lay!)
I wouldn't say a word that could be reckoned as injurious
But to find a mother younger than her son is very curious
And that's the kind of Mother that is usually spurious!
(Taradiddle, taradiddle, tol-lol-lay!)"
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