DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Cathy]

Re Channeling... Ohmm... Ohmm... Ohmm... hehe

[Tizer]

Ha ha, perhaps we should fight back against the trendies by inventing some of our own words and phrases!

[Stanley]

I still don't know what it means..... (apart from digging ditches and drains)

[Tizer]

I looked at the definitions Wikipedia offered for channelling and thought this one suited the Ed Milliband quotes: `Mediumistic channeling, the esoteric process of receiving messages or inspiration from extra-dimensional beings or spirits, whereby one is a medium or channel for such an entity.' Thus Ed Milliband is going to receive messages or inspiration from Ronald Reagan!

[Stanley]

More likely Marx and Engels judging by his conference speech.

[Wendyf]

A friend from Colne came to visit on Sunday and was stopped at the gate by a barking Bertie. She said that he is a good "tenter" meaning, I suppose, that he was a good guard dog.
I'd never heard it before, does anyone know where it comes from?

[PanBiker]

A tenter Is a frame for drying cloth on Wendy, tenterhooks are the means of fastening said cloth to the frame. I have always known the word in the same association as your friend gives it, alertness as in attention.

[Wendyf]

Thanks Ian, I knew about the cloth drying and tenterhooks.....just couldn't see where guarding came into it, though I can see the connection with attention, attendant etc.

[hartley353]

For all my life I have understood a tenterhook to be a device used on early ships to allow cargo to be stabilised by gravity. To be on tenterhooks meant to be held in a constant state of change. Having taken a look through some of my weightier tomes. Ians version is given most creedence. this is a very historic word and certainly precedes the cloth industry. The dried fish or smoked fish trade says it comes from their hanging devices. The meat trade says it comes from theirs and was used to hang and tenderise meat they prefer the spelling of tenderhooks. Ancient medieval torturers used them in their trade. Certainly a prime example of the constant flux in language which makes it so wonderful.

[chinatyke]

A friend from Colne came to visit on Sunday and was stopped at the gate by a barking Bertie. She said that he is a good "tenter" meaning, I suppose, that he was a good guard dog.
I'd never heard it before, does anyone know where it comes from?

Tenting is to look after something, like a loom tenter watches looms. So the dog is watching (tenting) the house. I heard it used frequently in Colne because we had a small terrier that would bark at anything approaching our house.
I'm sure I've heard tenter used as a job description in the mills.
Tenterhooks and frames were used in the Yorkshire woollen trade but we used stenters in Lancashire to stretch and dry cotton fabric. Not sure if that was the same derivation but it sounds possible. To be on tenterhooks is to be tense, up tight about something, under stress, and I think comes from the tenter frames used to stretch wool.
I'm sure Stanley will have some more reliable information on this subject.

[Stanley]

The tenterhooks used in the wool industry, originally used for stretching fulled cloth after fulling which compresses the fibres, are certainly a genuine reference and the most common origin in textile areas but like most words the roots go back far deeper. In the case of attention, it seems to be from the Latin 'attendere', to bend to or take notice. This covers 'tenter' as in loom tenter or engine tenter, both very commonly used, one who watches, exactly what a tenting dog does. Tenter in tenter-frames is from a Middle English word 'tente' to stretch which my come from the Latin 'tensus' which also means to stretch. So, on balance, it looks as though they could from slightly different, but very similar roots. There is a small section of original tenter-frames at Helmshore Museum. The field name 'tenterfield' originates in the outside areas where tenterframes were set up to stretch the cloth, dry it and allow it to bleach under the influence of sunlight.
I have a new word for you, a 'web-tenter' is one who guards the site against spammers! (See 'What attracted your attention')

[hartley353]

The indian continent pioneered this method with cloth drying around 1400 ( From net search). The word Tenterhooks has also been found in roman translations as early as 15AD.

[plaques]

How about "crammed" = bad tempered. Where did this come from?

[chinatyke]

How about "crammed" = bad tempered. Where did this come from?

Wow, haven't heard that since my childhood! Thanks.

[Stanley]

Common in Barlick. OE 'crammian', to stuff covers the common usage. As for 'crammed' as bad-tempered, I have always thought that this referred to the way a person in a temper can swell up, become red in the face, be 'choleric'. Akin to someone stuffed with too much food. Danger of splitting open, exploding....?

[Stanley]

Bit of naval slang for you picked up from 'Sixteen Bells' by Gilbert Hackforth-Jones. 'Aggie Weston' Used as a reference for temperance it originates from the Sailor's Rests set up by Agnes Weston. (LINK)

[Tripps]

" Agnes joined the Royal Naval Temperance Society and was allowed to visit sailors on warships and talk to the crew to promote temperance. "
That went well then....

The RAF had Malcolm Clubs - no idea who Malcolm was, and there was also Toc H. Dim as a Toc H lamp was a common insult.

There was also the Sandes Home - sandes Home

[plaques]

Brossen = Full up after eating. A widespread northern term. But why brossen?

[Stanley]

Sounds Germanic to me.... Could it be linked to 'brose' for porridge? That originates from old French.

[Tripps]

We 'did' brossen on the old site. I think I raised it. I'd never heard it until meeting people from Preston area. I too thought it was of German origin, but a native speaker (Gugger?) said it wasn't. Brose sounds good .

[plaques]

Can't find "brose" in my Oxford -Duden "German" dictionary. I tend to think its old Norse. Perhaps I'm just a bit gormless, (gaumless). from gaum, There I go again.

[PostmanPete]

Atholl Brose is MY kind of brose......!

[Stanley]

Powerful stuff isn't it Pete!
Another naval one. Why were torpedoes called 'mouldies'?

[plaques]

From "Papers Past" 1916

But why are they called " Mouldies " ? Because it is such a' mouldy game to let loose three or four hundred pounds weight of high explosive against your foe without giving him a sporting chance , to avoid it or hit back. When they were first invented they were rejected by the nations as " infernal machines," unfitted to honourable warfare.

[hartley353]

The scots and some northen folk call moles moudies, perhaps this became mouldi when describing a torpedo which travels under water as a mole travels underground.