Conference thebay::joyoflex

What the heck does "Rural A Guy You Rascal" mean? Did the T shirt have a 
sub-title?

re Chopin  Liszt
                                                             
Urban myth in Australia from x years ago. Supposedly some elderly ladies were 
great cricket fans, and wanted to knit a special gift for one of the players, 
but they didn't know _her_ size. The player, Lillian Thompson.

Chele

    Hi Chele -- Re subtitles on the "Rascal" shirt -- none to be seen.  I
    recall having been interested equally in the frescoes of the Sistine
    Chapel and following up that very question.  So I made it my business
    to inspect this fellow's shirt from all angles.  There was some sort of
    insignia reminiscent of a club or school, around which this deathless
    motto was placed.  But of ASCII characters, that was the lot.  My only
    theory as to its purpose was given in the basenote.  Weird, eh?  Any
    visiting Indonesians/Malaysians/Myanmarians sporting similar stuff
    down-under?
    
    Re Lillian -- assumedly a male (garnered from context, never heard of
    him...?)?
    

    I've had a lot of these in Desperado over the years.  My favorite is
    still "LET'S F2K THE ZEB STAR GIRLS!"

    I *KNEW* I'd seen these collected somewheres!  And if not ::JOYOFLEX,
    then DESPERADO would be the next logical culprit.  Tnx!
    
    But OBTW, .3 is too syntactically correct to compete successfully with
    .0, imho.  But judge who I am to??
    

re .0

While visting a primitive part of the 
continent a while ago, I saw a T-shirt 
with

	SOFTWA
	REENGINEERING

on it - does that count?

 
       Re:      Chopin  Liszt

	One of my best friends has this notepad too, Dan'l, and I've
	been wondering where to mention it in the file, too!  Thanks.

	Di

When I consider the size of my christmas chopin liszt,
I get panicky, need a drink to calm me down, and end up 
completely brahms and lizst.

    Enough of this Bartok.  Verdi you think you're going, Scriabin the
    bottom of the barrel like this?  I can't Handel much more before I must
    go Bach to the Faur�st.
    
    (sorry)
    
    :-)
    

    'D I ever tell yez about my friend in Britten who useta cross the
    Bridge and go ice fishin?  It wuz so cold he hadda wear a Parry Coates
    and bring along a Beethoven.  It was a real Paine, too, he never caught
    anything, and he finally got Piston quit.  Yea, well, so I'm Poulenc
    yer legs a little.
    
    I think it's about time to set this string on Falla.

I feel like my Bach's to the wall ...

Did you hear about the guy who used cooked minnows when he went fishing ...
he cooked them in a Beethoven.

Buying CDs from all these composers is going to make me Baroque.  (Note to the
Europeans ... and obviously somoething worthy of another note in here somewhere,
for some reason, North Americans insist that Baroque is pronounced as if it
were Broke with an a ... viz baroke ... Note to the N. Americans ... Europeans
pronounce it as barock.)

"Stop interfering ... what a Mendelsohn kid!"

    that was originally
    
    digitalsoftwa
    reengineering
    
    A few years ago I had the opportunity to take the train from
    Maihama to Yokahama through Tokyo daily.  I saw many t-shirts
    and other apparel that were supposed to look like they were
    made in the USA, but the grammar was alwyas slightly wrong.
    [just like that sentence  :-)]
    
    ed

    Yep, that's the stuff.  I note with presumption and amusement that you
    have not supplied any of the writings, OBVIOUSLY :-) because they just
    don't fit into English-native mental storage bins.
    

    The Spit Brook road site used to have a blazing "Chinese Red" (i.e.
    reddish-orange, the color of our docs at the time) wall with black and
    white bars representing the ASCII for "digitial software engineering". 
    The phrase was split equally so that "digitalsoftwa" was the top line
    and "reengineering" was the bottom line.  The summer hires that year
    got T-shirts showing the same thing.  
    
    This magnificent artifact has been destroyed and replaced by some dumb
    marketing slogan in ASCII that I have never bothered to translate.  
    

    Re .13: Hey, _I've_ got one of those T-shirts. (They were, as I recall,
    a grass-roots idea in honor of ZK's somethingth anniversary, and for a
    few weeks after they came out half the people in the building were
    wearing them. Looked like the halls were on fire.)
    
    The red wall was silly, but good for direction-giving and lots of
    commentary; the gray wall is just boring.
    
    -b

    On the baroque note (sorry): Reader's Digest (sorry again) had 
    an anecdote about a music librarian who'd put up the following 
    notice in an attempt to stop people from using the FAX machine 
    for personal use:

                           If it ain't baroque
                               don't FAX it

    -maarten.

re .-1

...which leads on to one of my pet peeves.

Why do people type abbreviations (such as "fax") in upper case?
That seems to make some sort of sense when the abbreviation is
formed from a bunch of initial letters but not when it's
just a shorter name.

(Even worse is the upcasing of words which aren't even 
 abbreviations.  Here in network-land, I'm sick of seeing
 the word NODE screaming out from the middle of a sentence).

Once I was Jung
and not aFreud,
but now my Kraft is Ebing
and I am very Sade.

	Over many years and on several continents (even in Boston city),
	I have seen syntactically incorrect T-shirts screaming ;

			ON ON

	What the heck does this mean?

/Chris.

"I note with presumption and amusement that you
    have not supplied any of the writings, OBVIOUSLY :-) ..."
    
    One [not on an item of apparel] was a beverage known as "SWEAT."
    
    It claimed to contain the natural replacement fluids needed by the
    human body.  What native English speaker would thrist for a can of
    SWEAT?
    
    ed

    Re Lillian Thompson - _Two_ men, Dan.
    
    Re barock/baroke
    
    American, having a greater/more influential/more recent immigrant
    population from Europe, is home to a lot of different pronunciations of
    foreign words that British English mispronounces as a matter of
    routine. As it happens, they're both wrong in this case; but who cares?
    
    b

>	Over many years and on several continents (even in Boston city),
>	I have seen syntactically incorrect T-shirts screaming ;
>
>			ON ON
>
>	What the heck does this mean?
    
    ON ON is the call of a Hash House Harrier.  Hashers most often describe
    themselves as drinkers with a running problem.  I'm not hasher (I don't
    drink, but I do have a running problem).  Hash House Harrier clubs are
    found all over the world, the origin being in Malaysia many moons ago. 
    The local Colorado Springs club is the PPHHHH:  Pikes Peak Hash House
    Harriers and Harrierettes.  Many of my fellow ultrarunners are also
    hashers, so it is quite common for me to hear the call of ON ON during
    an ultrarun.
    
    Sid

    While living in Japan one was naturally encountering T-shirts and pub
    names which were nonsensical or phonetically incorrect: The Glasshopper
    Pub, for instance. The most memorable non-alcoholic beverage name was
    Cal Pis....

What's wrong with "The Glasshopper"?

Pubs are often named after trades, or after tools used in
trades, and the names are usually chosen to have significance
to the expected clientele.   

Obviously the Glasshopper is named after a large vessel
used for the temporary storage and transportation of 
vitreous materials.

    Or, applying Ockham's razor to made-up etymologies of English phrases
    by foreigners, maybe it is a pub frequented by people who hop from
    glass to glass.
    

Hello all.

I have a query regarding the expression "Hither, thither, and yon".
I've always interpreted it as "here, there, and further over there" (imagining 
a waving arm vaguely gesturing at the horizon).

Is this correct?


Chele

    	Hither and thither imply movement. I am here, but I could ask you
    to come hither. You are there and I could go thither.

    Person	Location	"To"	"From"
    
    I		Here		Hither	Hence
    You		There		Thither	Thence
    He/She/It	Yonder		<no forms I know of>
    
    Other languages have even more stuff along these
    lines.
    		-John Bishop

    Don't forget "Where," "Whither," and "Whence."
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    G'day,
    
    I would have gone with 'Chele (assuming she gave me the ok ;-)   )
    
    Yonder is further away than over there and has no sense of motion...
    you need a motion verb ie Go yonder..
     as indeed in come hither,
    
    please consider...
    place    choice of place  choice of time
    Where       whither         whence
              whereever        whenever
    
    aww heck, got me confused now... 
    
    
    derek

re <<< Note 1079.29 by AUSSIE::WHORLOW 

>    I would have gone with 'Chele (assuming she gave me the ok ;-)   )
    
>    Yonder is further away than over there and has no sense of motion...

OK Derek :)

Couldn't the Irish folksong me modified to 
 "I love to go a yondering, along the mountain track"


Chele

NOT me modified - BE modified

Friday fingers

    G'day
    What light by yonder window shines.. 
    like a good deed in a naughty world.
    
    
    djw
    

    Wow, what a nice thread from down yonder.

Hello again,

Is a "grass widow" a divorced woman or a temporarily separated woman?
Why "grass"?
A friend of Slav origins said he was used to the expression "white widow", as 
the woman wan't actually in mourning (black).

Since I'm now interested in topics horticultural, why do widows wear "weeds"?

Chele

    A grass widow is a married woman left alone whilst her husband follows
    his chosen sport or hobby.  It's therefore the generic of the golf
    widow, cricket widow, baseball widow, sailing widow, etc.
    
    Weeds, or often widows weeds, comes from the old English w�d which was
    a black band worn in mourning.

    Well . . . maybe.
    
    The "golf widow", "football widow", and so forth are artifacts of
    increased leisure time in the modern era, but the term "grass widow"
    dates back to the 16th c. and commonly means a divorced or separated
    woman, also a discarded mistress or woman with an illegitimate child.
    
    W9NCD gives no derivation, but under the word "grass" I find the
    definition "a state or place of retirement <an old horse put out to ~>"
    which seems to fit.

    	As a study of English, "widows weeds" both as a term and a concept
    is a little archaic. My wife's grandmother wore black for 20 years to
    her death, but I haven't noticed the same thing in the next generation.
    
    	I am rather sceptical about a connection between "grass widow" and
    "put out to grass" in view of the 16th c. date for "grass widow". In
    those days too few people were rich enough to regard either the horse
    or the farmland as other than a source of income. I would guess at
    closer connections with "tumble in the hay" i.e., intercourse outside
    the marital home.

    "tumble in the hay" reminded me of 'living over the brush'
    
    The male and female servants would, betimes, sleep in the same bed
    being separated by a brush (besom type).  If either ventured to the
    other side and indulged in.... without the benefit of clergy they were
    said to be living over the brush.
    
    In due course the phrase was applied to other classes of living
    together, but not married, couples.

    Re .39: Uh, like a broom? [The closest def. of "besom" I know of
    without going home to look in the OED...]
    
    -b

Yes, broom is the definition I remember. And the Americal colonial name for
the same type of device was a bundle board.

JP

    You mean, that apparatus that was supposed to suppress knotty thoughts?
    

    besom:
    
    also known as a broom.  Made from a bundle of hazel twigs, into which a
    handle is inserted.  The sort of thing a witch flies around on.

    	"While on the subject of rural �conomy , it may not be improper to
    mention a pretty implement of housewifery that we have seen no where
    else; that is, little neat besoms which our foresters make from the
    stalk of the 'polytricum commune' or 'great golden maidenhair', which
    they call 'silk-wood', and find plenty in the bogs. When this moss is
    well combed and dressed, and divested of its outer skin, it becomes of
    a beautiful bright-chestnut colour; and being soft and pliant, is very
    proper for the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, &c. If
    these besoms were known to the brushmakers in town, it is probable they
    might come much in use for the purpose above-mentioned".
    
    	Gilbert White, writing in Selbourne in November 1775.
    
    	This indicates that "besom" could probably be used for almost any
    sort of brush, since the description gives more an impression of a
    feather duster than a bundle of twigs.
    
    	I note that the dictionary also gives "besom" as a derogatory
    description for an old woman. I suppose this may come from the
    association with witches mentioned in .43.

    There are many techniques used to keep the streets of Paris clean,
    including people using besoms.  The difference is that the bundle of
    twigs is replaced by a bundle of bright green, plastic, fairly stiff,
    fronds. 

    Couldn't resist a late entry about widows.  I always heard the
    phrase "grass widow" opposed to "sod widow" -- did he walk away
    or was he buried?

"Is grass widow anything like a football widow?" she asks, innocently.

     Carol

    Grass widow (or widower) - a person whose husband (or wife) is away for
    a prolonged period.
    
    Widow (2) - a woman whose husband is often away on a specified activity
    (*golf widow*)
    
    Weeds - deep mourning worn by a widow.
    
    
    These are from the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
    
    
    What colour is a Black Widow ? (A venomous spider, Latrodectus mactans,
    of which the female devours the male)
    

    Yeah, but why *grass*???
    
    Etymological Fictionary-class answers welcome...  I can't STAND not
    knowing -- I'll accept "knowing!" :-)
    

>    knowing -- I'll accept "knowing!" :-)
 
In the Netherlands, the expression is "green widow". And, as we all know, grass
is green (even more so on the other side)
                                                        
                                                  - Rik -
   

    You're only making it WORSE!  AIEEE!!! :-)
    

    	With a horse, being put out to grass is much like being put out to
    stud.

    Re .48
    
    > What colour is a Black Widow ?
    
    The female is a black spider with a hairless, glossy abdomen, with a
    length of approximately 1 to 1.5 cm.  She bears a red hourglass-shaped
    mark on the underside of her abdomen.

    A grass widow is a lady whose marijuana habit has died...          :-)
    
    A grass widow used to be married to a police informer...           
    
    Perhaps she's been turfed out of her lodgings...
    
    Her husband's name was HERBErt...
    
    
    or, possibly...
    

    On the other hand, it could be a misspelling for "glass window"...
    
    
    ;-)
    
    Dave
    

    And if it's the valid etymology, yikes, one WOULD hate to be dubbed
    with that moniker...
    
    Apellation out-of-Controlle�!!
    

      <<< Note 1079.52 by PASTIS::MONAHAN "humanity is a trojan horse" >>>

    	With a horse, being put out to grass is much like being put out to
    stud.

<    > What colour is a Black Widow ?
<    
<    The female is a black spider with a hairless, glossy abdomen, with a
<    length of approximately 1 to 1.5 cm.  She bears a red hourglass-shaped
<    mark on the underside of her abdomen.

Sometimes, however, the mark is on her back instead of her abdomen.  
The abdomen is also quite large in comparison with the rest of her body.

Also, I believe that in rare cases the color of the mark may actually appear
yellow. 

The male is *considerably* smaller.  It has been a long time since I have
seen one on TV (never recognized one in person) but I believe he is also
black, and I believe he is non-poisonous.

    Carol, who has seen several with the mark on her back

    >Carol, who has seen several with the mark on her back
    
    Guess I'm lucky not to be one you've seen with the mark
    while you're on your back :-)

    G'day,
     rathole alert..
    In Oz, we have a relative of the BW.. called the Redback, there were 10
    reported bitings this week! venomous with a well tried antivenine
    available, the most common place for males to be bitten is in the
    nether regions.. from country dunny seats (dunny = toilet)or so they
    say.. spider's  marital habits same as BW!
    
    We have the funnel web too. Totally unrelated to redbacks, Funnel Webs
    can kill a child in 15 minutes.. antivenine available only since about
    1984...     marital habits.. male funnel web has spurs on 2 front legs
    with which to hold female which will kill him if she can.. but he is
    nearly as big as she is.. upto about 2" nose to tail along the body
    with a legspan about 3" typically.. 
    
    The first one I ever saw was on my sock. Unfortunately, my leg and foot
    was in the sock at the time. My wife said I over re-acted...
    
    
   end rathole
    
    
    how about a 'grass' widow, as she would be dressed in lawn?
    
    derek
    
    
    

I believe the Australian "Huntsman" spider is a relo of the tarantula.

I _hate_ spiders.  For lack of any other weapon I once sprayed half a can of 
carpet shampoo onto a monster strutting along my front porch.    
    
Chele

    She's called a "grass widow" because her husband is away so she can't
    get her OATS !!!
    
    
    Spiders are nice ! Leave them alone ! (Of course, we don't usually get
    huge spiders hiding in the toilet in England...)
    
    
    Dave
    

  In the early days of the old west, Arizona, New Mexico etcetera, black
  widows hung out in the same places that you mention a few notes back.  I
  didn't know outdoor plumbing could be that dangerous.

  	mikeP

    By "tarantula", do you mean the North American bird spider?
    
    							Ann B.

    G'day,
     Re-.1 = probably.... called tarantulas here, the huntsman is a
    harmless (=there have been no recorded deaths) spider with a large body
    and even longer legs that fan out and around forwards. The largest I
    have ever seen was in the local Blue Mountains - it was half the width
    of a door - and I can vouch, and have witnesses 'cos it was sitting
    on the louvre over the motel door, so I could see just how big it was!
    
   They are light brown in colour, with darker lowest leg segments = makes
    them look like they have paws..
    
    Funnel webs rear up and look like they are holding up their front legs
    like kids hold up their arms when they want to be picked up...
    
    We also have trap-door spiders, mouse spiders and house spiders that
    all bite and can need treatment..
    
    Fortunately, Australia has no major carnivores.. but it does also have
    the top 5 and 8 from the top 11 most venomous snakes in the world..
    
    It also has Great whites in the ocean, box jellyfish and other marine
    stingers.
    
    Derek 

re .-1
>    Fortunately, Australia has no major carnivores.. but it does also have
>    the top 5 and 8 from the top 11 most venomous snakes in the world..
    
We have some fairly venomous vegetarians too !  :^)

Chele

>>>>>Fortunately, Australia has no major carnivores.. but it does also have
>    the top 5 and 8 from the top 11 most venomous snakes in the world..

    all that and Foster's too.
    
    :-)
    
    ed

    G'day,
    
           <<< Note 1079.67 by RICKS::RICKS::PHIPPS "DTN 225.4959" >>>
    >                          -< That's a crock >-
    
     Do you mean 'That is bad'?
    or thatyou do not believe?
    
    derek
    
     

    It's a utensil for cooking animals.

>           <<< Note 1079.67 by RICKS::RICKS::PHIPPS "DTN 225.4959" >>>
>    >                          -< That's a crock >-
>    
>     Do you mean 'That is bad'?
>    or thatyou do not believe?

  The issue was whether or not there were major carnivores down there.  The
  reference was short for crocodile.  Or have they been converted to peas
  and carrots. 8^)  O.K.  So it should have been croc...

  	mikeP

    G'day,
    
    
    Ahhh so...
    
    Yes, the saltie is about the only major one.. and their distribution is
    somewhat limited... and they taste like fishy chicken, or so I'm
    told...
    
    and go well with peas and carrots..
    
    though man who cooks carrots and peas in same pot is...
    
    unhygenic..
    
    
    ;-)
    
    derek
    

    Dan -
    
    `grass'- I looked it up recently, forget where. Originally it had
    nothing to do with golf; it was just an Englishing of the French
    `grace'. A `grace' widow was a woman whose husband was not dead, but so
    long gone that she was treated as a widow as a matter of etiquette. (I
    don't know the details of that, but it was probably something like
    coming after married couples in the queue for the dining room but
    before other unattached females.)
    
    If people think of golf when they use it today, fine. But that's not,
    as far as I understand it, the etymology.
    
    b

    Tnx, Dick -- that's plausible enough that it doesn't belong in 1007.*!!
    
    :-)
    

    I thought I could let `Brian' ride; that's what comes of having a
    one-character signature. But this is getting too much: in the last few
    days I've been Dick, Brian, and Bob. Well Dick (Binder - that's not my
    name) is right: it's `Bob'.
    
    re .72: I checked in a fairly lightweight source for this kind of
    thing - Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It didn't mention
    etiquette, but it did mention the Pope. I don't understand the
    canonical niceties, but as I understand it dubbing someone a
    `grace widow' was sort-of a halfway house between divorce (not OK)
    and annulment (OK).
    
    Maybe the `etiquette' angle comes into it somewhere; anyway, Brewer
    confirms the derivation from `grace'.
    
    Bob
    (sheesh, that's _four_ keystrokes)