DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Tripps]

No - I think it's from the Latin verb curare - Once only used in the context of museums etc, but now widely used by the 'bien pensant' and avocado eating classes.


cūrāre
cūrō, cūrāre, cūrāvī, cūrātum (1.)
In English: to attend to, to take care of, to provide for, to undertake, to procure

[Tizer]

It's not only curate - there's a headline on the BBC News web site right now about Melbourne having to `compose' a curfew because of covid-19.

[Wendyf]

Tripps, no avocado for me this lunchtime, it was over ripe and straight in the bin (but I do say bath not barth).
Go on, tell me if that full stop should be inside the brackets, should there be a comma before them and is overripe a word?? I worry, but not for long.

[Tripps]

Go on, tell me if that full stop should be inside the brackets,

I can't find the question now, but I was looking for someone to tell me - not testing your knowledge. I don't ask questions to which I know the answer. I'm fond of using 'single quotes' for emphasis as much as anything - but then add brackets and you're in trouble.

Yes overripe is a 'thing' . Shocking to allow it to happen.

[Stanley]

The Co-p don't understand Avocados. As soon as they get soft they panic and reduce the price. You can't make Guacamole with hard Avocados can you.... I lived in a house in California with a big avocado tree in the back yard and avocados were a staple of our diet. We only used the ones that had fallen off the tree and they were all 'over ripe'!
Getting words confused is so common these days. I don't think they spent enough time reading comics when they were young. Rover, Hotspur and Wizard were all reading and no pics. I've always said they were the foundation of my spelling and use of words. Very well written and edited. Remember Wilson and Rockfist Rogan?

[Marilyn]

Avocados are like Bananas. I can’t stand them mushy either.
Avocados are out of our reach at present. Last week they were £1.40 each...

[Tizer]

Talking about whether overripe is a word, I get thrown when reading American published books by them dropping the hyphen where we would (or used to ) use it. For example, mentioning the reentry of a spacecraft into the atmosphere. (I notice reentry is flagged up as wrong as I write this post but I've seen it in American use.)

[Stanley]

I've just heard 'sextarianism' used instead of 'sectarianism' in an obituary on John Hulme.
Hyphens.... shifting sands Peter. I take the view that as long as the meaning is clear and accurate there are no rules.

[Tripps]

I've just heard 'sextarianism' used instead of 'sectarianism' i

I think perhaps the clue there is 'heard'. The problem may be on the receive side rather than the transmit. Happens to me a bit these days. ?

I've heard / seen 'towing the line' - and 'escape goat' in the last few months.

[Tizer]

Apparently the words sliver and slither are now being mixed up often, at least in newspaper stories.

[Stanley]

I don't think so David, it was on digital reception and very clear.
'Gallivant' leapt out at me yesterday.
"gallivant (v.)
"gad about, spend time in frivolous pleasure-seeking, especially with the opposite sex," 1809, of uncertain origin, perhaps a playful elaboration of gallant in an obsolete verbal sense of "play the gallant, flirt, gad about." Related: Gallivanted; gallivanting.

Young Lobski said to his ugly wife,
"I'm off till to-morrow to fish, my life;"
Says Mrs. Lobski, "I'm sure you a'nt",
But you brute you are going to gallivant."
What Mrs. Lobski said was right,
Gay Mr. Lobski was out all night.
He ne'er went to fish, 'tis known very well
But where he went I shall not tell.

["Songs from the Exile," in "Literary Panorama," London, 1809]"

[Tizer]

We used to use gallivant all the time and I often still do. `Off gallivanting, eh?'

[Stanley]

A word I use frequently. You might have noticed that I love making use of what we have available. This morning's was 'arcane'. One word with a specific meaning that encompasses so much.
Triggered by 'kip' this morning:
See THIS and sort your own origin and meaning out. So many definitions and origins ranging from a bundle of hides or a type of leather to a small board used for tossing coins in the Aussie game of 'Two Up'. Associations with brothels, Dutch Taverns and Lord knows what else.
I knew it as army slang for sleep and have heard of kip leather but the rest are a revelation. A small but very complicated word! (Just remembered, another army word for a kip was gonk. I daren't look that one up!)
Here's a little puzzle for you triggered by 'kip'. Do any of you know what a slink calf is....?

[Whyperion]

A good point Peter and what is worse is the underlying mind set it betrays.
Another word leapt out at me, 'greedy'. I found a surprisingly complicated history.
"Old English grædig (West Saxon), gredig (Anglian) "voracious, hungry," also "covetous, eager to obtain," from Proto-Germanic *grædagaz (source also of Old Saxon gradag "greedy," Old Norse graðr "greed, hunger," Danish graadig, Dutch gretig, Old High German gratag "greedy," Gothic gredags "hungry"), from *græduz (source also of Gothic gredus "hunger," Old English grædum "eagerly"), possibly from PIE root *gher- (2) "to like, want" (source of Sanskrit grdh "to be greedy").
."

Would that also be a route of Grazing for eating ? Or is that a diferent derivation

[Whyperion]

There was a disagreement in The Times recently about someone on a Tuesday writing that an event would happen `next Friday'. Some took it to mean the following Friday (i.e. 3 days later), others that it meant the Friday of the following week.

Should Next .... be used, as in a week any day following will be that day. unless it is for an unnecessary emphasis. Following Friday can be rightly Called Friday Week. (which makes not much sense but is understoond).

[Whyperion]

So I am still in no-man's land.
More pedantry.... Have you noticed how the emphasis on the first syllable of many words is going out of fashion and is being shifted to the second? This usage in 'pastoral' jarred my sensibilities yesterday.

Is that something that is USA american and is that something grown from there (and not arcane Norfolk or West Country?)

[Stanley]

Slink?

[Wendyf]

The skin of an unborn calf.

[Stanley]

Well done Wendy, not many people know that!

[Wendyf]

Have to confess to looking it up.

[Stanley]

I first became aware of it when I bought a calf skin off a butcher in Blackburn as a covering for Vera's rocking chair. Then I found out that the very best Astrakan hats are made out of unborn kid skin. It is finer than the normal skins.

[Stanley]

Today's word; 'muggy'. I went for a furtle....
""damp and close, warm and humid," 1746, with -y (2) + obsolete mug "a fog, mist," from Middle English mugen "to drizzle" (of a fog or a mist, late 14c.), from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse mugga "drizzling mist," which is possibly from PIE *meug- "slimy, slippery" (see mucus)."

[plaques]

Thinking about blacksmithying the phrase ..Under the spreading chestnut tree, came to mind. I then find that it can have a meaning that is different to what I thought. Chestnut.

This line appears in the first part and seventh chapter of George Orwell’s novel, 1984. It reads as:

“Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.”

[Stanley]

Never come across that before David. What a convoluted literary device. I don't think it will find a place in my lexicon!

[Tripps]

Never come across that before David. What a convoluted literary device

Ken I think.

I agree - and I think all these clever analysts sometimes see more than what is actually there. I am big fan of Occams Razor, and for what it's worth I think that Orwell just chose a name for a teashop. I could equally have been The Copper Kettle or some such. What analysis would that have produced. Clever people can only produce clever results - no point in being clever otherwise.

Here's the one in the village. Magnificent - good to look at while you're in the stocks.

chestnut tree.jpg