 | | | Subject: Lob
Posted Mar 23, 2001 by Mustapha
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159
  | | Why would one stitch up a kipper? Possibly if you were going to stuff it with something, and not have said stuffing fall out. Certainly stitching kippers would have little practical use as a veterinary procedure.
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My Shorter Collins says kipper derives from "copper" and thus the colour the fish turns. However Skeat's English Etymology believes it is of Scandinavian origin refering to a spawning fish (eg a salmon). Any takers?
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| | | Subject: kipper
Posted Mar 23, 2001 by ?
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160
| | Etymology: Middle English kypre, from Old English cypera; akin to Old English coper / copper
Date: before 12th century
1 : a male salmon or sea trout during or after the spawning season
2 : a kippered herring or salmon
(source: the yourdictionary website)
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| | | Subject: kippered
Posted Mar 23, 2001 by Nikki-D
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164
| | Sorry, I can't let this conversation about kippers go by without posing the question (I think it was Duncan's from 6 months ago) ... " do Manx kippers have tails ?"
As I *always* ask this in *any* conversation that mentions kippers, people are begining to think I'm quite mad, actually. Really really !
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| | | Subject: Sew, what's all this stitching?
Posted Mar 25, 2001 by plaguesville
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170
| | This is somewhat unfamiliar to me. I've heard "Done up like a kipper." but whether this relates to a snugly wrapped sleeper unable to distangle himself, or a salty comestible, I don't know. The former seems slightly more to the point, but ...
"Stitched up" I take to mean that someone has been framed - false evidence presented.
"Sewn up" I take to mean that sufficient evidence has been discovered for a case to have been solved.
I suppose that in some constabularies this is a distinction without a difference.
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| | | Subject: Side-kicks
Posted Mar 26, 2001 by Nikki-D
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175
| | Dear P. - you sweet thing - I've been told it's my eyes that have the power !
Any ideas why it's "right-hand man" not "left-hand man" ? Anything to do with the latin derivations of left & right ?
Also, my are second-in-commands always leiutenants and not captains etc. ?
Anyone for cappuccino ?
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| | | Subject: Side-kicks
Posted Mar 26, 2001 by  Gnomon: ciabatta and mortadella
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177
| | It is right-hand man rather than left-hand man because there was a strong bias in European culture until recently towards the right.
The right was considered good and proper. The left was considered mysterious and evil. It is no coincidence that the word right in English means "correct" and "something you are entitled to have" as well as "the opposite of left". It is the same in French. The word "droit" means a right as in something you are entitled to, as well as meaning "opposite of left". The French for left is "gauche" which also means clumsy or inept. In Latin, the word for left was "sinister" which also meant the same as it does today in English.
I am reminded of a scene in a Marx Brothers film where Margaret Dumont says to Groucho, "Dr Jones will sit on my left hand and you will sit on my right hand" to which Groucho replies: "how are you going to eat? through a tube?".
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| | | Subject: Spitting
Posted Mar 26, 2001 by Kaeori
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178
| | Conversation I heard this weekend included:
Woman speaking to friend: "Oh, your little (5-year-old) boy is your spitting image."
Boy: "No, I wasn't spitting."
Problem: how to explain why an image is spitting to a 5-year-old, when none of the grown-ups know?
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