I have been chasing "threshold" since I saw a reference to it in connection with threshing where, without citation, the word was defined as a board placed across the door opening to keep the grain in the barn where it was threshed on the barn floor. I also remembered a threshold board 24 inches high to keep his cows in when the door was opened. This threshold board would also keep cattle in when used for thrIeshing.
I can't believe that you don't have Mosey defined. To mosey is to saunter. Others say that its origin is unknown. First used 1850s It sounds like cowboy lingo to me. I discovered that Mosey is different than mosey in your book.
penchant has been misspelled at least three ways - pencient, penchent and penchint. Your speller did not pick up any misspellings. However, in my comment the second 2 were corrected and it took me sometime to have the misspelled words printed.
Wen, the rune that became in the alphabet double-u which is actually double-v before v's and u's switched places in the English alphabet. This raises other questions. Linguistics anyone?
I used outlandish in my Tumblr oldbutnotdotty to comment on the feminine of rodman (work designation of a land surveyor's helper). I was surprised to find that it came down from Old English almost unchanged - utlendisc (see above)
Ceceo is a linguistic word which describes dialectical differences. Take the word these, English pronounce th as in the, the Irish just off the boat use to say des (long e) Des and dosers were a step down from the these & thosers. I publish, but I am going to return to this post. Spelt seseo, it is used in Spanish to describe dialectical differences.
The "hood" meaning hoodlum is pronounced like the first syllable of hoodlum in Chicago where the designation "Hood" was early (20s) used. Rhymes with food.
I invented a word game or exercise where using the same two or more consonants you use all five vowels and if you are lucky you will find "y" as vowel which makes six. Example: pat, pet, pit, pot, put for five. pyt doesn't cut it. Or does it? lae is the first in a series l-e.
skrimshander the first sighting by me was in Melville's Moby Dick and referred to needle engraving on Sperm Whales teeth. I had always associated these carved objects with scrimshaw and scrimshander with the carver. It is clear from Moby Dick that Melville, a sailor who had served on whalers, had firsthand knowledge of the usage.
Sockdologer Plus Sockdologer knocked my socks off when I came across it in a particularly tough article on logic(?) by Charles S. Peirce who wrote in the 1880′s.
What a world of coincidences I get into when I start to check on words. I looked up”sockdologer” to see if I could date it using Wordnik. There it was referenced to James F.Cooper in 1830. I then stumbled on to a reference to Our American Cousin marked SPAM. So I Googled Our American Cousin and here is what I found:
"The play’s most famous performance was at Ford’s Theatre in Washington City on April 14, 1865. Halfway through Act III, Scene 2, the character of Asa Trenchard, played that night by Harry Hawk, utters a line, considered one of the play’s funniest, to Mrs. Mountchessington: “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap.”
During the laughter that followed this line, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer who was not in the cast of the play, fatally shot Abraham Lincoln. Familiar with the play, Booth chose this moment in the hope that the sound of the audience’s laughter would mask the sound of his gunshot. He then leapt from Lincoln’s box to the stage and made his escape through the back of the theater to a horse he had left waiting in the alley. The remainder of the play that night was suspended.8
The last words Lincoln heard “You sockdologizing old mantrap.”
That pound of pure strikes a note. In the 19th century London, book binders used dog turds to dress leather and referred to this dressing as pure. They bought it from poor folk who went around London collecting the turds by the bucket and sold the turds to the binders by the pound.
Fully discussed in Mayhew's London Labour & London Poor.
A hintabunty (noun) - a worthless fellow - used by my aunt in the thirties, Maybe mispelled. My aunt is from the Upper Peninsula, Michigan's Copper Country.
I have used snus and believe me it is NOT spit free. It is smoke free. I was shown (by a Swede nicknamed Swede at the U of M how to place a pinch under the LOWER lip) To swallow is to puke or at least feel like puking. After some use I developed a rough spot on the gum and stopped use. It was the only tobacco form that I could feel - made me a little dizzy.
A mucker in the mines was the laborer who shoveled muck, the rock and water that fell from the blast to the floor of the mine, into man cars. Woe betide the previous drilling team who forgot to lay boards down to make the mucker's job easier.
sog is related to the expression "old sog" from Mocha Dick as related in the Knickerbocker Magazine circa 1839: "extraordinary fish; or, in the vernacular of Nantucket, "a genuine old sog", of the first water." describing the Great White Whale which helped inspire Moby Dick.
In the past, english used to distinguish gender with masculine and feminine endings. Aviator/aviatrix and others. Is there an editrix? The answer is yes and a good thing has been lost in the dumbing down of gender. Women are not honorary men.
My use of ort (Sing.) refers to a bit of food lodged between the teeth, dislodged and spit out. That certainly meets the definition: " A fragment of food left over from a meal:".
Fell swoop occurred in Santayana's The Life of Reason. Vol ! (1907). It is spelled out in two words, but it is used as one word. Should it not be hyphenated? Fell - to take or cut down and swoop - seize with a sweeping motion. ORIGIN: from Shakespeare's Macbeth ( iv. iii. 219).
slopsolaky (sp?) was used by my Aunt to describe persons who dress with no care, slouch as they walk and generally give the appearance of a slob. An ill mannered lout. Used in the 20's & 30's There may be other spellings as I have never seen slopsolaky in print
If you wanted to label the position, you could say that Montaigne is a fallibilist. He believes we must always bear in mind our own endless capacity for error. ( from the NYT Review)
Shabeen - From South Africa - an off license shanty where liquor & beer are sold and drunk. Also used in the West Indies. I first heard the word used on St Kitts.
A fine toothed comb was/is a two edged comb with fine (close spaced) teeth used to comb out human hair looking for lice or nits. They were much more common before we had good delousing washes.
taint is also a contraction of "it ain't" - which would make it unique as a word with two apostrophes - t'ain't. From old time radio Fibber Magee & Molly "T'ain't funny, Magee"
“ The word kike was born on Ellis Island when Jewish immigrants who were illiterate (or could not use Roman-English letters), when asked to sign the entry-forms with the customary 'X,'* refused, because they associated an X with the cross of Christianity, and instead made a circle. The Yiddish word for 'circle' is kikel (pronounced KY-kul), and for 'little circle,' kikeleh (pronounced ky-kul-uh. Before long the immigration inspectors were calling anyone who signed with an 'O' instead of an 'X' a kikel or kikeleh or kikee or, finally and succinctly, kike.3
Somewhere in the past, I learned that KIKEL was an emigration notation for Jews leaving the ship. Somebody with more research ability than I can confirm. Kikel may be of Yiddish origin. You might check the Dictionary of American Slang.
Years ago I came across "sockdollager" in a essay by Charles Sanders Pierce, a 19th century logician. He wrote in the 1880's. The word has stuck with me, but I have never seen it in a dictionary. It is slang of an earlier age.
Comments by grandpa27
grandpa27 commented on the word forfend
Heaven forfend that I should add my two cents!
April 16, 2016
grandpa27 commented on the word threshold
I have been chasing "threshold" since I saw a reference to it in connection with threshing where, without citation, the word was defined as a board placed across the door opening to keep the grain in the barn where it was threshed on the barn floor. I also remembered a threshold board 24 inches high to keep his cows in when the door was opened. This threshold board would also keep cattle in when used for thrIeshing.
July 6, 2015
grandpa27 commented on the word scudder
A scudder is a tool for scraping hides to remove hair. I would like to see a picture of one.
March 13, 2015
grandpa27 commented on the word dule
January 30, 2015
grandpa27 commented on the word mosey
To lampbane,
You get off your horse, tie him to the hitching post and mosey into the saloon. Your boots help you saunter with a rolling gait.
December 13, 2014
grandpa27 commented on the word Mosey
I can't believe that you don't have Mosey defined. To mosey is to saunter. Others say that its origin is unknown. First used 1850s It sounds like cowboy lingo to me. I discovered that Mosey is different than mosey in your book.
December 13, 2014
grandpa27 commented on the word wind
Wind - rimes with dimmed wind rimes with kind. Why is it so difficult to get these two words properly separated in the dictionary.
December 12, 2014 ⋅ delete ⋅ edit
December 12, 2014
grandpa27 commented on the word hove
hove in the expression "hove around the bend" is equivalent to came.
July 17, 2014
grandpa27 commented on the word shelte
@ madmouth Check out "The secret languages of Ireland by R A S McAlester" 1937. If you google shelta you will find lots of information.
April 26, 2014
grandpa27 commented on the word shelte
Shelta is a secret language spoken by Irish Tinkers. It is related to cant and appears in your definitions of cant.
April 25, 2014
grandpa27 commented on the word penchant
penchant has been misspelled at least three ways - pencient, penchent and penchint. Your speller did not pick up any misspellings. However, in my comment the second 2 were corrected and it took me sometime to have the misspelled words printed.
November 9, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word wen
Wen, the rune that became in the alphabet double-u which is actually double-v before v's and u's switched places in the English alphabet. This raises other questions. Linguistics anyone?
November 2, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word outlandish
I used outlandish in my Tumblr oldbutnotdotty to comment on the feminine of rodman (work designation of a land surveyor's helper). I was surprised to find that it came down from Old English almost unchanged - utlendisc (see above)
October 17, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word ceceo
Ceceo is a linguistic word which describes dialectical differences. Take the word these, English pronounce th as in the, the Irish just off the boat use to say des (long e) Des and dosers were a step down from the these & thosers. I publish, but I am going to return to this post. Spelt seseo, it is used in Spanish to describe dialectical differences.
September 28, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word hood
The "hood" meaning hoodlum is pronounced like the first syllable of hoodlum in Chicago where the designation "Hood" was early (20s) used. Rhymes with food.
July 21, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word laes
I invented a word game or exercise where using the same two or more consonants you use all five vowels and if you are lucky you will find "y" as vowel which makes six. Example: pat, pet, pit, pot, put for five. pyt doesn't cut it. Or does it? lae is the first in a series l-e.
June 28, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word dead duff
To get off your dead duff is to get off your seat and doing something. Thirties & forties slang.
April 18, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word skrimshander
skrimshander the first sighting by me was in Melville's Moby Dick and referred to needle engraving on Sperm Whales teeth. I had always associated these carved objects with scrimshaw and scrimshander with the carver. It is clear from Moby Dick that Melville, a sailor who had served on whalers, had firsthand knowledge of the usage.
March 3, 2013
grandpa27 commented on the word mud hen
I heard the term "mud hen" applied to ugly women. She's ugly as a mud hen. From the 1940's.
November 23, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the list words-that-sound-naughty-but-aint
My grandfather (1868-1936) was addicted to swearing so he made up strings to soften his curses. For example:
You sun of a gun, you biscuit bun, you got Dan's hat on.
Cheese & crackers got all muddy.
November 11, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word sockdologer
Sockdologer Plus
Sockdologer knocked my socks off when I came across it in a particularly tough article on logic(?) by Charles S. Peirce who wrote in the 1880′s.
What a world of coincidences I get into when I start to check on words. I looked up”sockdologer” to see if I could date it using Wordnik. There it was referenced to James F.Cooper in 1830. I then stumbled on to a reference to Our American Cousin marked SPAM. So I Googled Our American Cousin and here is what I found:
"The play’s most famous performance was at Ford’s Theatre in Washington City on April 14, 1865. Halfway through Act III, Scene 2, the character of Asa Trenchard, played that night by Harry Hawk, utters a line, considered one of the play’s funniest, to Mrs. Mountchessington: “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap.”
During the laughter that followed this line, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer who was not in the cast of the play, fatally shot Abraham Lincoln. Familiar with the play, Booth chose this moment in the hope that the sound of the audience’s laughter would mask the sound of his gunshot. He then leapt from Lincoln’s box to the stage and made his escape through the back of the theater to a horse he had left waiting in the alley. The remainder of the play that night was suspended.8
The last words Lincoln heard “You sockdologizing old mantrap.”
November 9, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word pure
That pound of pure strikes a note. In the 19th century London, book binders used dog turds to dress leather and referred to this dressing as pure. They bought it from poor folk who went around London collecting the turds by the bucket and sold the turds to the binders by the pound.
Fully discussed in Mayhew's London Labour & London Poor.
November 5, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word Ayenbite of Inwyt
“The Ayenbite of Inwyt,” A quote from Middle English (see inwit) turns up in James Joyce's Ulysses as agenbite of inwit,
October 30, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word slough
I aways heard slough as ending in f like stuff, when a snake sheds his skin.
When talking swamp-like pronounced slue.
October 26, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word hintabunty
A hintabunty (noun) - a worthless fellow - used by my aunt in the thirties, Maybe mispelled. My aunt is from the Upper Peninsula, Michigan's Copper Country.
September 15, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word tycooness
Just as I suspected - gender differentiation is a lost art - which I hope to revive single handedly.
Tycooness - a female tycoon.
August 30, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word amygdala
Surely the words amygdala and amygdule are related even though they are worlds apart in meaning. The almond shape may be the clue.
August 27, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word snus
I have used snus and believe me it is NOT spit free. It is smoke free. I was shown (by a Swede nicknamed Swede at the U of M how to place a pinch under the LOWER lip) To swallow is to puke or at least feel like puking. After some use I developed a rough spot on the gum and stopped use. It was the only tobacco form that I could feel - made me a little dizzy.
June 9, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word mucker
A mucker in the mines was the laborer who shoveled muck, the rock and water that fell from the blast to the floor of the mine, into man cars. Woe betide the previous drilling team who forgot to lay boards down to make the mucker's job easier.
May 13, 2012
grandpa27 commented on the word sog
sog is related to the expression "old sog" from Mocha Dick as related in the Knickerbocker Magazine circa 1839: "extraordinary fish; or, in the vernacular of Nantucket, "a genuine old sog", of the first water." describing the Great White Whale which helped inspire Moby Dick.
October 26, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word HET
The expression "all het up" was used in my mid-western youth to describe aggravation.
September 25, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word editor
In the past, english used to distinguish gender with masculine and feminine endings. Aviator/aviatrix and others. Is there an editrix? The answer is yes and a good thing has been lost in the dumbing down of gender. Women are not honorary men.
July 22, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word ort
My use of ort (Sing.) refers to a bit of food lodged between the teeth, dislodged and spit out. That certainly meets the definition: " A fragment of food left over from a meal:".
July 2, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word fell swoop
Fell swoop occurred in Santayana's The Life of Reason. Vol ! (1907). It is spelled out in two words, but it is used as one word. Should it not be hyphenated? Fell - to take or cut down and swoop - seize with a sweeping motion. ORIGIN: from Shakespeare's Macbeth ( iv. iii. 219).
June 26, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word slopsolaky
slopsolaky (sp?) was used by my Aunt to describe persons who dress with no care, slouch as they walk and generally give the appearance of a slob. An ill mannered lout. Used in the 20's & 30's There may be other spellings as I have never seen slopsolaky in print
June 24, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word exotification
Turned up in the NYT Magazine today.
May 8, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word exotification
exotification - To make exotic. Just add it to exotic.
May 8, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word fallibilist
If you wanted to label the position, you could say that Montaigne is a fallibilist. He believes we must always bear in mind our own endless capacity for error. ( from the NYT Review)
April 30, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word shitbritches
How about "shitbitches" From Joyce's motorman on Bloom's stumble in front of the street car. Bloom was on his way to night town.
April 19, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word Ineluctable
Ineluctable Modality is found in James Joyce's Ulysses.
April 13, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word main
This comment placed in "billowy main"
I found "billowy main" in On seeing the Elgin Marbles - Keats.
"That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time -- with a billowy main --
A sun -- a shadow of a magnitude."
March 31, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word billowy main
I found "billowy main" in On seeing the Elgin Marbles - Keats.
"That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time -- with a billowy main --
A sun -- a shadow of a magnitude."
March 31, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word slipperslapper
Probably, if memory serves me right, from James Joyce's Ulysses nighttown scene. Rrfers to Bella Cohen. Old Mother slipperslapper
February 25, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the user grandpa27
Shabeen - From South Africa - an off license shanty where liquor & beer are sold and drunk. Also used in the West Indies. I first heard the word used on St Kitts.
February 11, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word campaig
Obviously misspelling of campaign
January 15, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word calathumpian
I may have misspelled calathumpian, but my Grandfather used it to describe a loud boisterous rambunctious outburst of youthful exuberance.
January 15, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word literatuse
literatuses
This word came from Walt Whitman via NYT Book Reviews Essay on critics.
January 2, 2011
grandpa27 commented on the word fine tooth comb
A fine toothed comb was/is a two edged comb with fine (close spaced) teeth used to comb out human hair looking for lice or nits. They were much more common before we had good delousing washes.
June 12, 2010
grandpa27 commented on the word taint
taint is also a contraction of "it ain't" - which would make it unique as a word with two apostrophes - t'ain't. From old time radio Fibber Magee & Molly "T'ain't funny, Magee"
August 20, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word skanky
Skanky is modern slang
August 19, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word kaboodle
From my Apple Dictionary:
kaboodle
noun variant spelling of caboodle .
caboodle |k??bo?dl| (also kaboodle)
noun (in phrase the whole caboodle or the whole kit and caboodle) informal
the whole number or quantity of people or things in question.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.(originally U.S.): perhaps from the phrase kit and boodle, in the same sense (see kit 1 , boodle ).
August 17, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word fin de sicle
fin de sicle - a french phrase which probabyy means end of an era. Fin = end, de = of. sicle = ?
August 3, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word amante
Argentine amante I found amante in an article about ]the SC Go
amante - lover in french. Get with the times guys
June 28, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word quartzlike
In response to someone who wanted a quartz adjective I hit upon adding the suffix -like. Did I do wrong or is the solution too simple.
June 26, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word sufflated
Taken from a review of Prof Oates in the Sunday NY Times 6/7/09
June 7, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word fascicles
Emily Dickinson tied some of her poems in FASCICLES.
April 23, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word fascicles
From Apple's Dictionary - Powerbook G4
fascicle |?fasik?l|
noun
1 (also fascicule |-?kyo?l|) a separately published installment of a book or other printed work.
2 (also fasciculus |f??siky?l?s|) Anatomy & Biology a bundle of structures, such as nerve or muscle fibers or conducting vessels in plants.
DERIVATIVES
fascicled adjective
fascicular |f??siky?l?r| adjective
fasciculate |f??siky??l?t; -y?lit| adjective
ORIGIN late 15th cent. (sense 2) : from Latin fasciculus, diminutive of fascis ‘bundle.’?
April 23, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word tatts
Noun Slang Short for Tattoos See Tattoo
April 16, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word enjumbment
This word was used by Brenda Wineapple in her book White Heat when discussing Emily Dickinson"s poetry
April 15, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word enjumbment
enjambment |en?jam(b)m?nt| (also enjambement)
noun
(in verse) the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from French enjambement, from enjamber ‘stride over, go beyond,’ from en- ‘in’ + jambe ‘leg.’
April 15, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word kike
According to Leo Rosten,
“ The word kike was born on Ellis Island when Jewish immigrants who were illiterate (or could not use Roman-English letters), when asked to sign the entry-forms with the customary 'X,'* refused, because they associated an X with the cross of Christianity, and instead made a circle. The Yiddish word for 'circle' is kikel (pronounced KY-kul), and for 'little circle,' kikeleh (pronounced ky-kul-uh. Before long the immigration inspectors were calling anyone who signed with an 'O' instead of an 'X' a kikel or kikeleh or kikee or, finally and succinctly, kike.3
From Google Mack Kelly
April 9, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word kike
Somewhere in the past, I learned that KIKEL was an emigration notation for Jews leaving the ship. Somebody with more research ability than I can confirm. Kikel may be of Yiddish origin. You might check the Dictionary of American Slang.
April 9, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word noirish
noirish = noir like. Noir is french and means ?
April 5, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word plashless
Plashless = Splashless An Emily Dickinson invention (?) for getting into the water without splashing.
April 4, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word teazes
Teazes looks like it is a variant of teases. Emily Dickinson uses it thus. Obsolete these days.
April 4, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word brontophobia
brontosaur |?bränt??sôr| (also brontosaurus |?bränt??sôr?s|)
noun
another term for apatosaur .
DERIVATIVES
brontosaurian |?bränt??sôr??n| adjective
ORIGIN modern Latin from Greek bront? ‘thunder’ + sauros ‘lizard.’
It appears to me that brontophobia is a fear of thunder
April 4, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word Chicago
I am a native born in Chicago. My pronunciation of the city's name stamps me as native.
sha caw' go
April 2, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word crullers
My apple dictionary says
cruller |?kr?l?r|
noun
a small cake made of rich, sweetened dough twisted or curled and fried in deep fat.
ORIGIN early 19th cent.: from Dutch kruller, from krullen ‘to curl.’
March 31, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word sockdollager
Years ago I came across "sockdollager" in a essay by Charles Sanders Pierce, a 19th century logician. He wrote in the 1880's. The word has stuck with me, but I have never seen it in a dictionary. It is slang of an earlier age.
March 30, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word gun
Surveyors refer to their Transits as guns, most likely because they point and observe (shoot) lines to points.
March 27, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word staub
A variant surveyors description of a Hub Staub = hub
March 27, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word Hub
Surveyors use hub to describe the 2X2X8 wooden stake they drive into the ground to position a point (usually a surveyors tack) they are measuring to.
March 27, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word goon
I believe that Goon was used (maybe invented) by Segar, the creator of Popeye the sailor. Google Goon Segar
Mack Kelly
March 26, 2009