This week’s theme
Tools and devices that became metaphors

This week’s words
chalk line
ratchet
parish pump
windmill

---

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(par-ish PUHMP)

MEANING:

noun: A water pump shared by people within a small area.
adjective: Of local, often trivial, interest or importance.

ETYMOLOGY:

From parish (a small area, especially one that has its own church) + pump, of uncertain origin. Earliest documented use: 1840.

NOTES:

Before there were curated feeds, there was the parish pump! A real wellspring of information (and maybe misinformation). People didn’t just come for H₂O; they came to tap into the local grapevine.

This tradition of gathering ‘round the communal water source to swap stories isn’t unique; sailors had their scuttlebutt, Aussie soldiers their furphy, and modern office dwellers have their water cooler.

The phrase “parish pump politics” describes issues that may seem like small potatoes nationally but stir up a full-on boil at the local level. In other words, trivial on tap, but drama on demand.

USAGE:

“[Patricia Anne Churchill] wanted the paper, through feature pages, to cover subjects of greater interest ... and make the paper less parish-pump.”
Paul Elenio; Pat Tested Boundaries, Shaped the Post; Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand); Aug 15, 2015.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: