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Post by alexanderhoward on Sept 8, 2024 12:26:43 GMT
A new swing-bridge has opened over the Clyde, between Govan and Partick, and other downstream is close to completion. Why anyone would want to go to Govan or to Partick, I will leave to locals. The Beeb covere it in local news. Bridges are good though - and they swing to allow ships through, as the Clyde is still a busy shipping and ship-building river. Above the yards, the Clyde is threaded across with many bridges, the Clyde being a more modest river than, say the Thames.
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Post by barbados on Sept 12, 2024 10:14:22 GMT
TIL that the metropolitan line is the only line on the London Underground that passes through a zone without stopping.
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Post by crissdee on Sept 12, 2024 17:09:34 GMT
Growing up on a fairly regular diet of assorted adventure series/films, I always imagined that the ability to throw a rope to someone in peril would feature far more often in my life than it has thus far, and I was always quite disappointed that, when I tried to practice it, the rope would always end up in a tangled mess, far short of what any theoretical rescuee might require. However, I am now happy to report that I have learned the technique, and stand ready to be the hero of the hour should any of you find yourself engulfed in quicksand, or swept away in some putative torrent.
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Post by Dix on Sept 12, 2024 17:23:28 GMT
TIL that the metropolitan line is the only line on the London Underground that passes through a zone without stopping. Do they charge you for passing through?
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Bondee
KWC
Bearer of Ye olde Arcane Dobbynge Sticke.
Posts: 290
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Post by Bondee on Sept 13, 2024 6:44:41 GMT
TIL that the metropolitan line is the only line on the London Underground that passes through a zone without stopping. Between Wembley Park and Finchley Road.
Something's bound to stick in the ol' noggin if you watch Geoff Marshall and Jago Hazzard's YouTube channels for long enough.
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Bondee
KWC
Bearer of Ye olde Arcane Dobbynge Sticke.
Posts: 290
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Post by Bondee on Sept 13, 2024 7:02:55 GMT
However, I am now happy to report that I have learned the technique, and stand ready to be the hero of the hour should any of you find yourself engulfed in quicksand, or swept away in some putative torrent. I was taught how to do coil a guitar lead to do the same. I should imagine that it's a similar, if not identical, technique with a rope.
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Post by crissdee on Sept 13, 2024 9:21:21 GMT
I would certainly imagine so, guitar leads and ropes being morphologically identical. We have a very long (30m) speaker lead for our cowboy show, I may introduce the technique for that as well...
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Post by efros on Sept 15, 2024 20:19:34 GMT
The word shagel is Hebrew and is an obscene word that describes a sexual act. I began putting 2 and 2 together and arriving at 4, one wonders if this is the origin of the slang word shag. Shag apparently appeared out of nowhere in the late 17th century and doesn't seem to be connected to the other meanings of the word shag. Any thoughts suze ?
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Post by alexanderhoward on Sept 15, 2024 22:19:47 GMT
I believe the accepted origin of the English word is an adaptation of "shake", but etymologists can be wrong. If it came from a Hebrew word in the Georgian period, it would have to have been a Hebrew word used in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) or just about possibly Yiddish. It is unlikely to have come from learned theologians, even assuming that the word is biblical.
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Post by suze on Sept 15, 2024 22:39:56 GMT
Ooh now then, this one turns out to be more interesting than I was expecting.
We can, first of all, dispose of other meanings of the word shag. There is an Old English word sceacga which meant the fur of an animal, especially the wool of sheep. This word was gradually extended to refer to an unkempt dog, to a man's beard, to a sea bird, to a man with Boris Johnson's hair, to a kind of carpet, and to a kind of tobacco. This kind of shag can be traced through Norse and Old High German, and more theoretically to Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European.
Next, we need the Middle Low German verb schokken, to shake. How that evolved into shake is fairly obvious, and a parallel evolution into shag isn't the proverbial rocket science either. To run after someone is to shag after them (used in Pirsig, Zen and Motorbikes or some such title), and there was a dance of the 70s called the Carolina Shag (mostly a black usage, and not believed to be anything to do with sex - much as sex would not be out of place in the etymology of a dance craze).
As Efros says, the earlier history of the verb schokken is unclear. There are claims of a Proto-Germanic origin, but they look as if someone has been trying too hard. It's not hard to see why the sex act might be something to do with shaking, but there is no evidence for it.
Now, this Hebrew verb shagel. This appears four times in the Old Testament, and texts on Biblical Hebrew usually translate it as "to ravish". Even today, rabbis reading the Tanakh replace it with a circumlocution, so they definitely consider it a rude word. The usual obvious explanation of Germanic words in Hebrew is that they came into Hebrew via Yiddish, but this hardly applies to a word found in the Old Testament.
Efros' suggestion that shag might come from shagel is not entirely novel. It appeared in print in Canada in 2014 and a couple of times since, but there's a problem with it. The earliest known citation for shag meaning "to have sex" comes from 1770 and Thomas Jefferson, no less. Jefferson was reporting on a defamation case wherein one party alleged of another that "he had shagged his mother". The alleged Oedipizer was one Lambert, and court took his word for it that he had not done the thing alleged and found in his favour.
As of 1770, none but scholars of Biblical Hebrew knew about the Hebrew word, and scholars of Biblical Hebrew of that era tended not to be the sort of people who introduced novel and profane words for sex acts into poilte society. So it's probably a coincidence, but linguists don't like coincidences and there are a few who think that Efros is right on the money.
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Post by crissdee on Sept 19, 2024 9:05:20 GMT
Got an email today, asking me to ensure that I am appropriately recorded on the electoral roll. Fair enough, but I am also informed that, in Wales at least, 14 and 15 year olds are now eligible to vote! As is well known in these parts, I have no real political opinion even now, when I was a quarter of my current age, I was barely aware of politics as a concept.* Extending the franchise to such striplings seems.....odd.
*slight exaggeration...
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Post by Numerophile on Sept 19, 2024 11:46:44 GMT
That's not quite true. 14 and 15 year olds in Wales can join the electoral register, but they can't vote until they reach the age of 16 (and then only in Senedd or Local Government elections; for General Elections and national referenda the voting age remains 18 as it is in the rest of the UK). The reason for earlier registration is that their 16th birthday may fall before the register is next updated.
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Post by amanda on Sept 19, 2024 12:04:26 GMT
suze wrote:
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
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Post by crissdee on Sept 19, 2024 12:04:55 GMT
Ah, I must have misread the email...
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