DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[David Whipp]

Yup.

Used mollycoddle only last Tuesday...

[Cathy]

I'm sure we are all in our own little worlds Liz, how could we not be, but it's a good thing to pop out every so often and see what the world is doing - it helps me to feel normal.

[Tripps]

Interesting to see the word 'damper ' used twice on the site today - quite different meanings.

Stanley - "despite the boiler being emptied and the dampers being wide open it was still a hot furnace. Unfortunate, but it had to be done.

Marilyn - marinated the chicken breasts, made salad, made Damper (bread)"

Fascinating to see the bread meaning still used today in Australia. I first saw it in a book called "The Wolf Patrol" by John Finnemore, about the early days of Baden Powell's Scout movement. In fact - I don't think I've seen it since until today. They just mixed flour and water to make a dough, wrapped it round a stick and held it in the fire to cook it. It seems to date to 1911, and will tell you all you need to know of the British class system at the time.

[Tizer]

It's often interesting to see how a simple word or term is defined ad its history explained. I wore my boilersuit this morning while cleaning out gutters and drains before the storm and that prompted me to look up boilersuit on the Web. Wikipedia even devotes a page to it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilersuit
The critical bit is eloquently addresses as follows: "Boilersuits are so called because they were first worn by men maintaining coal-fired boilers. To check for steam leaks or to clean accumulated soot from inside the firebox of a steam locomotive, someone had to climb inside, through the firehole (where the coal is shovelled in). A one-piece suit avoids the potential problem of loosened soot entering the lower half of one's clothing through the gap in the middle. As the firehole opening is only just large enough for a fit individual to negotiate, a one-piece suit also avoids the problem of the waistband snagging on the firehole as one bends to wriggle through, or of jacket tails snagging if one has to come out backwards."

[Bodger]

OK where does " skeddadle" to go, leave, come from ?

[Whyperion]

Of unknown origin , though possibly N English or Scots ( Norse ) , traced to Mid C19th in some sources , but not quoted where it was seen (? Dickens?) , probably related to skittish

[Stanley]

Wiki is dead right.... Hot box and restricted opening. Big danger is your body swelling up while you are in there.....
'Skedaddle' Webster says it comes from Scots, N England dialect, meaning to spill or scatter. Also 'skiddle' meaning the same thing or to move away quickly. Echoes of 'scuttle' to run away.

[Bodger]

our coal 'scuttle' only moves when i carry it !

[Stanley]

Yes, but when you think Bodge, the coal 'skitters' and 'scuttles' when you are pouring it out.
But then there's the maritime scuttle, an opening in the side of a ship.....

[Bodger]

Is the nautical scuttle the same as the scuppers ?, as in the 'Drunken Sailor' song

[Stanley]

No, the scuppers are the means whereby water on deck can get over the side, often just openings but in some cases fitted with hinged flaps to keep water out. Webster suggests that this derives from Middle English 'scope' a scoop, hence 'scooper'. You’ll often see hinged flaps on a sewer outfall into a river and this prompted me to look up sewer. It comes from Old French 'esseouarie', a ditch or a very similar word 'essiouarie' meaning an overflow.

A 'skein' of geese. Middle English 'skeyne' or 'skayne', general sense seems to be a continuity of things, connected, in an orderly pattern.

[Cathy]

Reading the words scooper and sewer outfall made me think of todays term of 'pooper scooper'

[plaques]

An interesting poster on the Lancashire Online Parish Clerk project about St Leonard's Padiham.
http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Padiham/stleonard/index.html
Scroll to the bottom.

The background being that Burnley had just opened its new cemetery with very low charges.
The protest poster is in dialect written 1856.

[Tripps]

Thanks for the link - it lead me to some information which is of interest.
I suppose that's the Victorian equivalent to facebook.

[Stanley]

Until the rise of affordable newspapers the public notice board, leaflets and flyers and the popular ballad sheet were the best way of communication between ordinary workers. So yes, 19th century facebook.

[Stanley]

Came across an interesting word origin yesterday. Trevelyan says that the word 'mob' was coined in 1678 by the new Whig faction in politics. It came from the Latin 'Mobile vulgus' (meaning: the inconstant common people). He also said that the term Tory, originally a name for the horse thieves who infested the Pale in the dark days in Ireland, was first used to describe the Royalist Party by Titus Oates.

[Cathy]

Mobile vulgus, inconstant common people... goodness that really puts one in ones place doesn't it....

[Stanley]

Cathy, yes, but at that time in the 17th century the 'mob' was intensely political and very influential. Common they might have been but they had influence, far more than a mass demonstration has today.... Is what we have to report, progress?

[Bodger]

To 'dampen 'a fire, should it be like an engine 'choke' it ?

[Stanley]

Probably associated with the dampers which were the movable barriers in the flue to adjust gas flow. Going back to the roots I can still remember my mother putting wet tea leaves and kitchen rubbish like peelings on the open coal fire to slow it down and save fuel.

[PanBiker]

Have we discussed "manky" as in when describing the weather, "grey and manky" for a day like today or "that looks a bit manky" for something that's past it's best?

[Stanley]

I can't remember it if we have. I first came across 'manky' in the army. Collins says that the origin is from Polari, originally Italian 'Mancare', lacking in quality.
For Polari see LINK.

[Stanley]

According to Trevelyan, Jeremy Bentham's famous statement "The greatest happiness for the greatest number" was first coined by Joseph Priestley.
The word 'cabal'. Trevelyan says it was coined from the initials of Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale, all members of the committee on foreign affairs in 1672. They were famous for acting in concert.

[Stanley]

Little know fact about words popped up this morning on the World Service. When Coca Cola decided to start trading in China in 1972 they found they had a bit of a problem. The direct translation of 'coca cola' into Chinese resulted in 'Tadpoles biting rats' so they had to have a rethink. They found a different version that had far happier connotations.
Do you ever wonder about the person who allowed Smeg to become a brand name.

[Tripps]

This is one that I was aware of -Rolls Royce changed the name of its car the Silver Mist to the Silver Shadow before entering Germany. In German, "Mist" means manure (to put it nicely).

The whilst checking it out, I came across dozens of them Look here marketmistakes

I heard a new phrase this morning from Libby Purves on Radio 4. She constantly referred to people with ancestry which included native American as "First Nation". I guess this is the latest, cutting edge, politically correct term for such people.
Very confusing - once they were Red Indians, then Native Americans, now seemingly First Nation. Odd isn't it how PC terms evolve.