A Conversation for Ask h2g2
Ardour
Recumbentman Posted Jun 10, 2005
From yesterday's Irish Times:
"His most arduous fans blame the media for helping depict Jackson as a child-molester in reports and documentaries." -- Conor O'Clery in California.
It must be arduous to be a Jacko fan these days. I think he meant ardent, all the same
Ardour
DA ; Simply Vicky: Don't get pithy with me! Posted Jun 10, 2005
<<"His most arduous fans blame the media for helping depict Jackson as a child-molester in reports and documentaries.">>
Tee hee!
Ardour
kelli - ran 2 miles a day for 2012, aiming for the same for 2013 Posted Jun 10, 2005
For no obvious reason I have been pondering the words 'scree' snd 'screed' today. The former is to do with little rocks around the base of mountains due to weathering and the latter has something to do with laying concrete. Are these related words?
Ardour
Vestboy Posted Jun 10, 2005
I seem to remember as a student that people wrote screeds - meaning shedloads in the modern parlance.
Ardour
Teasswill Posted Jun 10, 2005
Concrete might well have lots of small stones mixed in it, but I doubt that screed follows on from scree.
Scree... d
~ jwf ~ scribblo ergo sum Posted Jun 10, 2005
Now there's a curious one.
Screeeee.......d.
These are the kind of words you can chew on and roll over your tongue all day until all the sense is gone like grinding all the flavour out of chewing gum.
Much to my delight, dict-dot-com answered the question rather succinctly. One is Old Norse meaning landslide and t'other is Mid English meaning fragment or strip but has somehow lately come to mean a long boring speech.
And it would seem that in the sense of 'fragments' they might be related in some meandering root from the ancient tree of Yggdrisil.
>> scree
n. Loose rock debris covering a slope.
A slope of loose rock debris at the base of a steep incline or cliff.
[Probably ultimately from Old Norse skridha, landslide, from skrdha, to slide.]
<<
and
>> screed
n. A long monotonous speech or piece of writing.
A strip of wood, plaster, or metal placed on a wall or pavement as a guide for the even application of plaster or concrete.
A layer or strip of material used to level off a horizontal surface such as a floor.
A smooth final surface of a substance, such as concrete, applied to a floor.
[Middle English screde, fragment, strip of cloth, from Old English scrade, shred.]
<<
~jwf~
Scree... d
kelli - ran 2 miles a day for 2012, aiming for the same for 2013 Posted Jun 10, 2005
Thanks jwf I think I must have caught the word 'screed' on one of the many gardening programs I watch and it has been washing around in my head for ages. Scree popped into my head of its own accord and I have indeed been rolling them around.
Interesting that they have come from different roots - you say they might be related in the dim'n'distant to Yggdrisil. What is that?
Scree... d
~ jwf ~ scribblo ergo sum Posted Jun 10, 2005
Yggdrisil is the tree of life in Norse mythology. Its branches reach to heaven and its roots are firmly planted in 'Middle Earth'. It is a richer and more complex philosophy than the Aristolean hierarchy of the cosmos embraced by the church but similar in its vertical integration of earth, man, god, heaven, etc...
Various and multitudinous Norsemen came to the British Isles over a period of several hundreds of years from approx 700AD to 1066 bringing their language and beliefs. But those who came in 1066 from Normandy would not have been speaking the same Old Norse as those who had come earlier.
Language evolves. But there does seem to be a sense of 'fragments making up a distinct whole' or 'chips off the old block' being 'spread out over a large surface area' at the essence of both words.
Masons (spreaders of stone and cement) will have had some input into its later meanings which might suggest a source for the unlikely evolution of screed coming to mean 'monotonous speeches and writing'.
~jwf~
Ardour
plaguesville Posted Jun 10, 2005
<<"His most arduous fans blame the media for helping depict Jackson as a child-molester in reports and documentaries.">>
If the media were only "helping" in the depiction, who takes the credit for the majority of the task?
Screed
Recumbentman Posted Jun 11, 2005
I originally heard the word screed used of a long legal document (a lawyer's screed); but OED says (examples omitted for this post):
[Variant of SHRED n. . . .]
I. 1. a. A fragment cut, torn, or broken from a main piece; in later use, a torn strip of some textile material. Also collect. sing. Obs. exc. dial.
b. A strip of land; a parcel of ground.
c. An edging, a bordering strip; the border or frill of a woman's cap. dial.
2. fig. a. A long roll or list; a lengthy discourse or harangue; a gossiping letter or piece of writing.
b. A piece, portion (of a literary work).
c. A (drinking) bout. Obs.
3. Plastering. a. An accurately levelled strip of plaster formed upon a wall or ceiling, as a guide in running a cornice or in obtaining a perfectly even surface in plastering; a strip of wood used for the same purpose. More generally in Building, a level strip of material formed or placed on any surface (e.g. a floor or a road) as a guide for the accurate finishing of it. Also, a levelled layer of material forming part of a floor or other horizontal surface.
b. Comb.: screed board, rail, strip; screed-coat, a coat of plaster made level with the screeds (Cent. Dict. 1891).
II. 4. Sc. [From the verb.] A rent, tear. Also fig. ? Obs.
5. Sc. A sound as of the tearing of cloth; hence, ‘any loud, shrill sound’ (Jam.).
It seems most of the examples are Scottish. And from the entry on "screed" as a verb,
. . . 2. intr. To produce a sound as of tearing cloth. Hence, of a musical instrument, to make a loud shrill sound.
. . . 1835 CARRICK, etc. Laird of Logan (1841) 77, I mind the verra tune that the fiddler played to us, as weel as if I heard the bow screeding o'er the strings the noo.
The Scots language
Recumbentman Posted Jun 11, 2005
. . . Which brings me to a question. Is the language spoken in Scotland (as in the above quote) British English? Well it's certainly British; but a friend who has been living in Scotland for twenty-five years says they don't call it English. They call it Scots or Scottish. It has its own line of evolution, from before the time of Middle or Modern English.
Which is an interesting sideline on Anglo-Irish. I don't call this language I'm writing in now Anglo-Irish, I call it English, just as the US Americans, Canadians, Australians, Indians, Nigerians, and many others call their majority language.
On the other hand if I wrote a successful book it would be classed (by some) as Anglo-Irish literature.
The Scottish language gives an enormous number of words to the English dictionary. Scrabble would be impoverished without such words as Ka, Ou, Ee, and many many more.
The Scots language
KB Posted Jun 11, 2005
I wonder if there isn't a touch of nationalist revisionism in saying it has its own line of evolution. It is Scots/Scottish of course (being exclusive to Scotland) but is that a distinct language, or one of the many forms of the English language?
The Scots language
You can call me TC Posted Jun 11, 2005
Either way it's British English, however the Scots would like it. So it legally belongs to this thread.
I'm still interested in the "screed" question. If "screed" is a verb (to make the sound of cloth tearing) how does it conjugate? Screed, screeded, screeded, or Screed, scred, scred.
And please excuse my ignorance, but I had vaguely thought that the screed was the screen that you used to get between the altar and the riffraff in church, which is now no longer used. What is the word for that, please? Have been racking my brains all day trying to remember.
And as for the drinking bout becoming obsolete. We'll have to do something about that.......
Oh help - here's me the professed anti-smiley suffragette now posting the post with the most smilies in the Brit Eng Thread ever. What is the world coming to?
TC's round
Gnomon - time to move on Posted Jun 11, 2005
I never went to the sort of church that had a screen between the altar and the people, but I believe it is called a "rood screen" or possible a "rude screen". I've never seen it written down. In a Greek Orthodox church it is called an "iconostasis".
The language of smileys
You can call me TC Posted Jun 12, 2005
Thank you Gnomon. Yes, rood screen. All the letters were there, but had got muddled up in my degenerate brain.
Our church is now being renovated and during the discussions about what goes where, lots of ecclesiastical words have elbowed their way back up to the top of the compost heap of useful English vocabulary which I haven't used for 30-40 years.
I'm even being asked to translate parts of the various Masses and other services for the World Youth Day celebrations. It's fascinating stuff. Not being a Catholic, I hope I don't put a theological foot in it somewhere.
Sorry about starting the smiley epidemic. I won't do it again.
The language of smileys
Recumbentman Posted Jun 12, 2005
TC--if you can sing Carmina Boorana in public you can do anything, even post smileys.
Key: Complain about this post
Ardour
- 11081: Recumbentman (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11082: Vestboy (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11083: DA ; Simply Vicky: Don't get pithy with me! (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11084: kelli - ran 2 miles a day for 2012, aiming for the same for 2013 (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11085: Vestboy (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11086: Teasswill (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11087: ~ jwf ~ scribblo ergo sum (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11088: kelli - ran 2 miles a day for 2012, aiming for the same for 2013 (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11089: ~ jwf ~ scribblo ergo sum (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11090: plaguesville (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11091: KB (Jun 10, 2005)
- 11092: Recumbentman (Jun 11, 2005)
- 11093: Recumbentman (Jun 11, 2005)
- 11094: KB (Jun 11, 2005)
- 11095: You can call me TC (Jun 11, 2005)
- 11096: ~ jwf ~ scribblo ergo sum (Jun 11, 2005)
- 11097: Gnomon - time to move on (Jun 11, 2005)
- 11098: DA ; Simply Vicky: Don't get pithy with me! (Jun 12, 2005)
- 11099: You can call me TC (Jun 12, 2005)
- 11100: Recumbentman (Jun 12, 2005)
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