Seldom-used words - M to A

[AllardChardon]

I tried to post a word and it would not work. I'll try again later.

 

[AllardChardon]

Second try.

That was a very nice conversation, Naoko. Handley and Og. I love catching up.

lave(1) - noun (before 12c) chiefly dialect: something that is left: RESIDUE

lave(2) - verb (before 12c) 1.a. WASH, BATHE b. to flow along or against 2. POUR ~ vi, archaic: to wash oneself: BATHE

 

[Handley_Page]

Second try.

That was a very nice conversation, Naoko. Handley and Og. I love catching up.

lave(1) - noun (before 12c) chiefly dialect: something that is left: RESIDUE

lave(2) - verb (before 12c) 1.a. WASH, BATHE b. to flow along or against 2. POUR ~ vi, archaic: to wash oneself: BATHE

Erm. . .
Excuse me, but dialect of which region, please?

 

[oggbashan]

Second try.

That was a very nice conversation, Naoko. Handley and Og. I love catching up.

lave(1) - noun (before 12c) chiefly dialect: something that is left: RESIDUE

lave(2) - verb (before 12c) 1.a. WASH, BATHE b. to flow along or against 2. POUR ~ vi, archaic: to wash oneself: BATHE

Of course, derivations of that include lavatory.

A lavatorium in an Abbey or Monastery (and presumably in a Nunnery too) is where the residents wash themselves (and defecate). The one at Canterbury Cathedral had a streamlet running under the holes to shit through.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Second try.

That was a very nice conversation, Naoko. Handley and Og. I love catching up.

lave(1) - noun (before 12c) chiefly dialect: something that is left: RESIDUE

lave(2) - verb (before 12c) 1.a. WASH, BATHE b. to flow along or against 2. POUR ~ vi, archaic: to wash oneself: BATHE

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, lave(2) comes from Middle English laven, which is from the old French laver—which is, itself, from the Latin verb lavare, to wash. The latter, it is thought, comes from an Indo-European root, lou-, to wash.

There are cognates in many Romance languages: lavar, to wash, in Spanish; laver, to wash, in French; lavare, to wash, in Italian.

Gardeners may be pleased to know that the word lavender shares the root, the Romans having used that herb to scent their bathwater. Lavender is still grown in Provence, where I have seen large fields, planted with seemingly endless rows of lavender in bloom.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Lirripipe - medieval hat with long bit hanging off the end of it. Apparently originally worn by medieval academics who very unusually set a trend, and everyone-else started wearing them too.

http://employees.oneonta.edu/angellkg/2-35.jpg

I get to wear a hat with my academic gowns It's a floppy red hat, very attractive. I get to wear claret coloured silk gowns and hat.

When I graduated for my Bachelors, somebody came along the line straightening all our hoods and tidying us up. There was a very anguished look in his eye as he came to the vegetarian in the line who had insisted on having a nylon fur edge instead of rabbit fur to his hood. The other colleges count up how many of your students have got scruffy or incorrectly put-on robes and fine you a bottle of port for every five

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Lirripipe
When I graduated for my Bachelors, somebody came along the line straightening all our hoods and tidying us up. There was a very anguished look in his eye as he came to the vegetarian in the line who had insisted on having a nylon fur edge instead of rabbit fur to his hood. The other colleges count up how many of your students have got scruffy or incorrectly put-on robes and fine you a bottle of port for every five

If I had a nickel for all faculty members I've seen, in academic processions, wearing their hoods inside out, I wouldn't be a bit worried about having the money I need for a very comfortable retirement.

 

[Handley_Page]

I humbly tender the following:-

Lordswike : A subject who betrays his King.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I humbly tender the following:-

Lordswike : A subject who betrays his King.

Wow - that's a good 'un! What's the derivation?

I have come in with a cheating 'g' word. It's not even seldom-used, but it is nowadays seldom used in its original sense.

Gleaning

Here is a picture of some wheat that I gleaned the other day on a walk to the beach through a wheat field which had just been harvested. There were lots of heads of wheat among the stubble. I picked some up as I went and nibbled the kernels - which were soft and nice - as I walked. There were no wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beasties that I could see to pick up the fat heads of grain.

 

[oggbashan]

...

Gleaning

Here is a picture of some wheat that I gleaned the other day on a walk to the beach through a wheat field which had just been harvested. There were lots of heads of wheat among the stubble. I picked some up as I went and nibbled the kernels - which were soft and nice - as I walked. There were no wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beasties that I could see to pick up the fat heads of grain.

In our local auction this week there was a modern large coloured statuette of a woman gleaner. I didn't bid on it. It was too large and too modern (and was bid beyond my range as I thought it would be).

It was based on something like this, but dated 1999!

http://media.gettyimages.com/illustrations/gleaner-by-francesco-gioli-oil-on-canvas-187x100-cm-1885-illustration-id146270370?s=170667a

But did you know that gleaning was an ancient form of poor relief? Widows and children were allowed to glean in local fields after they had been harvested. Some families could glean enough to provide food for a month or more (and some farmers were more generous with their leavings!).

 

[NaokoSmith]

In our local auction this week there was a modern large coloured statuette of a woman gleaner. I didn't bid on it. It was too large and too modern (and was bid beyond my range as I thought it would be).

...

But did you know that gleaning was an ancient form of poor relief? Widows and children were allowed to glean in local fields after they had been harvested. Some families could glean enough to provide food for a month or more (and some farmers were more generous with their leavings!).

That's exactly what I looked like! well ... with a somewhat shorter dress and sunglasses

I did know about the gleanings being a kind of 'poor relief'! If the farmer had met me and challenged me, I was going to ask indignantly whether he had given his due tithe in out of it, and remind him of his community responsibilities.

 

[Handley_Page]

I've heard the verb form (?) 'to glean', used in the gathering of information, particularly in a spare environment.
"From what I've been able to glean . . "

 

[NaokoSmith]

I've heard the verb form (?) 'to glean', used in the gathering of information, particularly in a spare environment.
"From what I've been able to glean . . "

Nowadays that's how it's almost always used. We very rarely go 'gleaning' in the original sense of the word, for stray ears of corn which the farmers kindly leave for poor little MILFs and strays wandering along the coastline, when they gather in the sheaves.

 

[Handley_Page]

Nowadays that's how it's almost always used. We very rarely go 'gleaning' in the original sense of the word, for stray ears of corn which the farmers kindly leave for poor little MILFs wandering along the coastline, when they gather in the sheaves.

Not many people would know how to treat the gleanings, anyway.

 

[beachbum1958]

So true, HP; it's a terrible affliction, somewhat akin to Groin-Clenching in the Outer Hebrides, except that only occurs in the mating season...

 

[ishtat]

Of course, derivations of that include lavatory.

A lavatorium in an Abbey or Monastery (and presumably in a Nunnery too) is where the residents wash themselves (and defecate). The one at Canterbury Cathedral had a streamlet running under the holes to shit through.

The Roman fort at Houseteads on Hadrians wall had a similar arrangement to that at Canterbury.

My parents bought a house in Glos. in the 1970's which had a five seater wooden bench in the kitchen garden. That went through the garden wall to a stream beyond. It was an early Victorian addition to a Georgian house and apparently was provided for the servants - men and women shared the facility.

 

[oggbashan]

The Roman fort at Houseteads on Hadrians wall had a similar arrangement to that at Canterbury.

My parents bought a house in Glos. in the 1970's which had a five seater wooden bench in the kitchen garden. That went through the garden wall to a stream beyond. It was an early Victorian addition to a Georgian house and apparently was provided for the servants - men and women shared the facility.

And such multi-hole outhouses were often places of assignation.

None of the romantic 'my love doesn't piss or shit' nonsense about Victorian servants!

 

[ishtat]

Agricultural trivia.

Not many people would know how to treat the gleanings, anyway.

There is an American manufacturer of Combine Harvesters called the Gleaner Company.

Millet's painting of Des Glaneuses 1857 seems harmlessly bucolic today but at the time it was heavily criticized as ideallising socialism.

Gleaning for corn is no longer practical today because wheat cut with a sickle or a reaper was cut about three weeks less mature than that cut by a combine harvester. Anything left by a combine would have the seed shaken out whereas if it was cut by the more primitive technology it would retain all the seed in the head of the not so ripe plant (end of farming lecture!)

 

[AllardChardon]

Hello, again, happy posters. I was seriously side-tracked by the Rio Olympics and then the chores I ignored while they were on. Remember, I only got cable TV a year ago, after a twenty year absence, and this was my first Olympics in over 20 years. A lot has changed, and some remained the same.

To recap, I love and own a print of Millet's painting of The Gleaners.

So, does that make Jamie Lannister a lordswike?

Og, regarding lavatories, do you know when water was first used for removal of the waste material?

I inherited one of these from my mother's estate;

lavaliere also lavalliere - noun (1906) a pendant on a fine chain that is worn as a necklace

 

[Handley_Page]

Hello, again, happy posters. I was seriously side-tracked by the Rio Olympics and then the chores I ignored while they were on. Remember, I only got cable TV a year ago, after a twenty year absence, and this was my first Olympics in over 20 years. A lot has changed, and some remained the same.

To recap, I love and own a print of Millet's painting of The Gleaners.

So, does that make Jamie Lannister a lordswike?

Og, regarding lavatories, do you know when water was first used for removal of the waste material?

I inherited one of these from my mother's estate;

lavaliere also lavalliere - noun (1906) a pendant on a fine chain that is worn as a necklace

Sir John Harrington patented a flushing toilet bowl during the reign of Elizabeth 1st (somewhere round 1585). Sadly, it never caught on with the public, who continued to chuck their crap from the windows upstairs. There was supposed to be a rivulet of water in the middle of the road, but it seldom worked properly, I gather.

I wondered where the term Lavaliier came from. It's a word used these days in a particular type of light-weight microphone, hung round the neck, thus enable the lecturer to keep his/her hands free.

 

[beachbum1958]

Lavalier, in the sense of a microphone worn around the neck or on a lapel, comes from the French, and originally meant a piece of jewelry worn as a pendant. It was named for the Duchesse De Vallière, one of Louis XIV's mistresses, who popularised the single-stone pendant necklace with the drop or chandeliere permanently attached to the chain rather than being clipped-on with a curved bale. Lavallière is also what the French call an Ascot.

 

[Weird Harold]

Og, regarding lavatories, do you know when water was first used for removal of the waste material?

It goes back at least to the Roman Empire. Where they stole the idea from is probably lost to history -- although Og will know if anyone does.

 

[beachbum1958]

It goes back at least to the Roman Empire. Where they stole the idea from is probably lost to history -- although Og will know if anyone does.

There were flushing toilets in every house in Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, in the Indus Valley, and a complex and sophisticated centralised sewage pipe system; the city of Mohenjo Daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE. There was also a flushing latrine, complete with seat, armrests, and a piped flushing system, unearthed in 2000 in China during the excavation of the Han Emperor's palace, so that particular thunderbox dates from anywhere between 206 BCE to AD 220.

 

[AllardChardon]

Handley, beachbum, and Harold, ancient sanitation is a very interesting subject to me. I am not so sure putting our fecal matter in fresh water is the best way to go with so many people living on the earth. Fresh water is a limited resource, after all.

lavabo - noun (ca. 1858) 1. often cap: a ceremony at Mass in which the celebrant washes his hands after offering the oblations and says Psalm 25:6-12 (DV) 2.a. a washbasin and a tank with a spigot that are fastened to a wall b. this combination used as a planter

 

[Handley_Page]

Handley, beachbum, and Harold, ancient sanitation is a very interesting subject to me. I am not so sure putting our fecal matter in fresh water is the best way to go with so many people living on the earth.
Fresh water is a limited resource, after all.

Don't forget that, among other places, medieval Japan used human waste to fertilise their fields. Even the modern Natural household system has enough plant life to clean up pretty well (given a little time). A soil pit works quite well for faecal matter.