Ah yes, but there has been seepage with this expression. It has not been unknown for potential victims to mutter utterances such as: "the phal of Damocles" for particularly demanding curries etc, etc, etc.
Aha Bilby: we meet again. I am indeed a Stackpool. We also write "Stackpool Elidor" in the old country (Wales is pretty old indeed). I intend to name my firstborn — male or female — "Elidor", which, as an educated kind of fellow, you will know is also the title of an Alan Garner novel that has its roots in the 12th century, about the same period as the Welsh prince Madoc supposedly discovered Alabama.
Uh... I entered this word by accident. I was trying to find out if someone other than myself ever coined it. I used it 20 years ago as an onomatopoeia for what happens when you get the bottoms of baggy woollen trousers wet and then have to run in them.
Comments by stackpool
stackpool commented on the word tocsin
Okay, so I just had to go find the etymology:
French, alteration of toquassen, from Old French touque-sain, from Old Provençal tocasenh : tocar, to strike (from Vulgar Latin *toccre) + senh, bell (from Late Latin signum, from Latin, signal; see sign).
August 26, 2009
stackpool commented on the word tocsin
Okay, so I just had to go find the etymology:
French, alteration of toquassen, from Old French touque-sain, from Old Provençal tocasenh : tocar, to strike (from Vulgar Latin *toccre) + senh, bell (from Late Latin signum, from Latin, signal; see sign).
August 26, 2009
stackpool commented on the word tocsin
It's a homophone of "toxin" ... maybe why people don't use that word so much any more...
August 26, 2009
stackpool commented on the word sword of damocles
Ah yes, but there has been seepage with this expression. It has not been unknown for potential victims to mutter utterances such as: "the phal of Damocles" for particularly demanding curries etc, etc, etc.
August 26, 2009
stackpool commented on the word stackpool elidyr
Aha Bilby: we meet again. I am indeed a Stackpool. We also write "Stackpool Elidor" in the old country (Wales is pretty old indeed). I intend to name my firstborn — male or female — "Elidor", which, as an educated kind of fellow, you will know is also the title of an Alan Garner novel that has its roots in the 12th century, about the same period as the Welsh prince Madoc supposedly discovered Alabama.
Salutations!
August 26, 2009
stackpool commented on the word swellop
Uh... I entered this word by accident. I was trying to find out if someone other than myself ever coined it. I used it 20 years ago as an onomatopoeia for what happens when you get the bottoms of baggy woollen trousers wet and then have to run in them.
So, my apologies: this isn't a real word at all.
August 26, 2009