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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 18, 2010 15:46:51 GMT
Harping back to "nonce" I always understood it as short for nonsense i.e. a pointless crime and not something decent like theft...
Isn't a hooligan a type of wind?
And do you know the derivation of mugger?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2010 17:01:49 GMT
Wouldn't it be something that a thugee does?
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 19, 2010 10:22:36 GMT
I think muggers were the big crocodiles in India which hid under the bridges ansd snaffled passers by...
Weren't thugees a religious sect that strangled people?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2010 21:50:06 GMT
I used this just today, but what on earth is the bejesus?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 22, 2010 23:17:57 GMT
Maybe it comes from "By Jesus" in the same way that "bloody" is supposed to come from "by Our Lady", i.e., the blessed virgin.
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Post by cigalechanta on Aug 23, 2010 18:00:07 GMT
Has anyon ementioned the cue as the cue and cue ball as used in billiard and pool games?
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Post by Kimby on Aug 24, 2010 6:48:59 GMT
As opposed to "cueing up" a record on a turntable?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 24, 2010 15:54:51 GMT
No, Cigalechanta ~~ there was another discussion about cue, but it was not related to pool/billiards.
Interesting. I have no idea why pool uses a "cue". I wonder if it refers back to an even earlier use of cue as some kind of stick.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 24, 2010 21:03:03 GMT
Maybe it's a cue stick because you have to strike the balls in a certain order, or hit balls only with particular other balls, like the cue ball. (But that would be queue, wouldn't it?)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2010 21:42:31 GMT
In French it is indeed une queue de billard.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 24, 2010 22:33:24 GMT
I've only recently noticed the word "busk" and "busker" used in conjunction with street performers and/or musicians.
What does this word mean and how did it come to mean that?
Is it derogatory, neutral or positive?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2010 5:07:56 GMT
I've always heard it used as a neutral official term for street performers. The dictionary says "chiefly British".
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 25, 2010 6:48:15 GMT
Maybe it's a cue stick because you have to strike the balls in a certain order, or hit balls only with particular other balls, like the cue ball. (But that would be queue, wouldn't it?) That Kimby ~~ not just another pretty face! Great deduction, Kimby. I would never have thought of that!
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Post by Kimby on Aug 26, 2010 14:22:03 GMT
And I never would have thought that I would accidentally get it right! Not being a French speaker, I needed K2 to put it together for me.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 26, 2010 22:27:34 GMT
I just found out my 88 year old Dad is going to the ER for evaluation, and I told someone I was "waiting on tenterhooks" to find out what is wrong with him.
Now what the heck is a tenterhook? And why did I use the expression when I don't even know what it really means?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2010 6:47:38 GMT
I looked it up.
The initial use of the modern idiomatic phrase was metaphoric. Being on tenterhooks referred specifically to the process of cloth making employed in Europe as early as the Middle Ages. After cloth was milled and washed, it had to be dried, but this posed a problem. Normally, drying meant the cloth would shrink significantly, which was undesirable. Cloth makers would make less profit if the cloth shrunk, since cloth was sold by lengths. Less cloth after the drying process translates to less money for the cloth maker. To avoid losing profits and valuable cloth, during the drying process cloth was tented to prevent it from shrinking.
Tenting meant the cloth was stretched out or suspended, like a tent, and usually attached to hooks, often simple nails, that were, as you might guess called tenterhooks. Thus cloth on hooks was stretched tight to dry. This sped up the drying process and prevented the cloth from shrinking. The actual tenting process was usually accomplished via small or large devices called tenters, usually wooden frames upon which the cloth would be attached to the hooks.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 27, 2010 14:08:50 GMT
Thanks, K2. (I do feel rather stretched. And hung out to dry.)
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 27, 2010 14:16:01 GMT
Frankly, I couldn't give a monkey's...
But what does that mean?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 27, 2010 22:57:39 GMT
Re: tenterhooks ~~ the quoted definition knocks my theory into a cocked hat (& what's the origin of that phrase?). I thought it was Latin in origin and related to Spanish tender, which is what is done with wet laundry: www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=tenderMick, I though it was a rat's ... that one couldn't give.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2011 8:16:22 GMT
Being a day late and a dollar short (but that's another thread), I only recently learned a French word that "everybody" knows here and it always just went through my head as a blank whenever I heard it -- which, it must be admitted, is not too often. The word is cornac.
But, earlier this year, that movie came out, Water for Elephants, and every single review was full of mentions of cornacs. Another major location for this word is in stories of circuses or the French translation of just about anything by Rudyard Kipling.
The definition of cornac is elephant handler. Why on earth would the French language have a special word for this profession without having an empire in India? And why doesn't English have such a word?
I did make a little investigation and saw that cornac entered the French language through Portuguese, which picked up the word from the language of Sri Lanka.
Words really do travel in mysterious ways.
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Post by onlymark on Nov 23, 2011 8:44:36 GMT
There is a word in English(?). 'Mahout' originates in India, in Hindi, as with many words originating there now used in English.
From wikipedia though - "Another term for mahout is cornac (as in French, from the Portuguese; kornak in Dutch and Polish, also a rather current last name). In Tamil, the word used is "pahan", which means elephant keeper, and in Sinhalese kurawanayaka ('stable master'). In Malayalam the word use is paappaan. In Burma, the profession is called oozie; in Thailand kwan-chang; and in Vietnam quản tượng."
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2011 9:43:20 GMT
Looks like mahout would be understood in "Indian English" just like amah (housemaid) in Hong Kong English, but what gets me is that cornac is known by little rosy-cheeked French kids whose closest contact with an elephant is Babar.
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Post by onlymark on Nov 23, 2011 10:25:19 GMT
I do doubt he average Englishperson would think of the word mahout when thinking of an elephant handler. It must be the French are brought up with elephants more than the British.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2011 11:54:43 GMT
I am just delighted that the Dutch and the Poles also have aspirations to wrangle elephants.
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 5, 2011 14:24:04 GMT
I came across a new word on Friday - vajazzle.
Fascinating......
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Post by patricklondon on Dec 5, 2011 16:05:33 GMT
There's been a (mercifully shortlived, I think) male equivalent. One comedian claimed on TV that his had looked like Gordon Ramsay in a tiara.
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 5, 2011 16:20:38 GMT
There's been a (mercifully shortlived, I think) male equivalent. One comedian claimed on TV that his had looked like Gordon Ramsay in a tiara. ;D
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2011 20:46:55 GMT
I have no idea what either of you are talking about.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 5, 2011 21:08:30 GMT
What? What is it? think think think Oh! Oh my word!!I'll avert my eyes from such horror.
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Post by fumobici on Dec 6, 2011 1:37:57 GMT
Newt Gingrich in a tiara here. As you were.
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