AWADmail Issue 256
April 8, 2007
A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
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From: Lyle Schultz (load357 earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--catchpole
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/catchpole.html
When I was growing up on the farm, we used a catchpole to actually catch
chickens. We just called it a chicken hook. It was commercially made of
heavy wire and about 48 inches long. It had a wooden handle not unlike
a screwdriver handle. The "catch" end was shaped into a four-inch hook
that was rounded at the end and flared out to about two inches, similar
to a capital letter "R". It was used by hooking the leg of the targeted
Sunday-dinner.
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From: Scott Johnson (scott.johnson furman.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--catchpole
There exist today for-profit debt collectors who purchase consumers' debt
for pennies on the dollar, then pursue individuals (with varying degrees
of rigor and veracity) to collect the monies owed.
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From: Donald Johnson (johnsondo cintas.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--napier
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/napier.html
This word carried me back to grade school where I was briefly (yet memorably)
exposed to Napier's Bones, an advanced form of abacus to assist in
multiplication and division of large numbers (among other things). The
inventor, John Napier, was a Scottish mathematician of the late 1500s whose
legend looms large in mathematical circles as he also was the inventor of
logarithms, which were a boon to fellow number crunchers and a bane to
generations of students who were required to take advanced math courses.
Presumably somewhere back in Napier's family tree a distant ancestor was
waiting tables for a Scottish king.
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From: Dorothy Raymond (d.raymond cablelabs.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--zanjero
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/zanjero.html
Zanjeros may no longer be around in California; but here in rural Colorado
where irrigation canals are still in use -- and water usage is closely
monitored to make sure no farm gets more than its fair share -- this is
still an important job and we call the ones who do it "ditch riders".
Every morning when water is running in the ditch behind our house, we see
the ditch rider go by (in his pickup truck driving on the ditch road), to
meet with the farmers on this section of the ditch.
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From: Marty Trahan (mtrahan exponent.com)
Subject: Re: zanjero
I live in Phoenix and thought you might want to know that this profession
is alive and well in Phoenix. Those of us in the older parts of the city
that are lucky enough to have flood irrigation have our irrigation water
released from the canals by a zanjero. Here's a link for more info:
http://www.srpnet.com/water/irrigation/defined.aspx
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From: Althea Godfrey (writealthea charter.net)
Subject: zanjero
Where I live in Southern Oregon we still have an occupation very similar to
zanjero, which is appropriate since we also live in a Mediterranean climate
(wet winters/dry summers). Here we still have "ditch riders", possibly
referring to the original method of monitoring the health of the irrigation
ditches that supply many of our rural farms and homes with water. The same
ditch supplies many people. Each person is allotted water on a certain day
with a specified periodicity. So, depending on your allotment, you could
have access to water every other Tuesday or Wednesday. But if your pump
is broken on that day, which of course you only discover when you try
to start it, you can't get water. In a situation like that, you work with
the ditch rider to get your supply. And in the summer when the temperature
goes above 95 and 100 degrees regularly, getting water is not optional for
your garden or crops. With water so precious, people are sure to develop
relationships with their ditch riders, so you'll hear comments like:
"My ditch rider is great..." or not so great, as the case may be.
Our water comes quite a distance before it gets to us and much of it comes
from a different watershed. Water wars are fought in board rooms now, but it
is an economic and environmental issue with hard questions and episodes of
passion and drama.
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From: Vaughn Hathaway (pastorveh cs.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bowyer
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/bowyer.html
Nearly every sporting goods store that is worth its salt in the USA has a
bowyer to this day, although he may not be called that. The compound bows
that are sold today can be, even have to be, adjusted so that they fit the
buyer.
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From: Rudy Rosenberg Sr. (rrosenbergsr accuratechemical.com)
Subject: professions of the past
Ladder-mender (French remailleuse). Person who mends runs on stockings
(mostly women's silk or rayon stockings).
Brief period (1940-1945) in Europe during which a large number of women were
employed as remailleuses during the German occupation of Europe. There were
no more stockings to be had and you made the ones you had last as long as
possible by mending the runs first with a manual hook, then with a more
sophisticated electric machine (still hand-held).
That profession became obsolete as soon as the stockings returned and with
the creation of Nylons.
Women took to painting their legs to make it appear they had stockings on.
Some went as far as drawing a "run" to make it look more authentic.
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From: Torrey Hoffman (torrey lockdownnetworks.com)
Subject: unusual professions
Anyone interested in unusual professions, as well as the skillful use of
the English language, may enjoy reading G.K. Chesterton's work "The Club
Of Queer Trades":
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Gilbert_K_Chesterton/The_Club_of_Queer_Trades/
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From: Stan Firth (sfirth69 aol.com)
Subject: This week's words
The Scots surname "Soutar" means "cobbler". I was amused when researching
our family histories to find my late wife's father and grandfather had in fact
both been cobblers rejoicing in the name "Soutar".
............................................................................
Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words. -Ralph Waldo
Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
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