Le 29/08/2025 |a 11:11, Richard Heathfield a |-crit :
On 29/08/2025 11:08, Hibou wrote:
Le 29/08/2025 |a 10:18, Steve Hayes a |-crit :
Does anyone here have access to the online Oxford dictionary, and if
so, does it say anything about this usage. [...]
I can see nothing relevant. (I think J. P. Gilliver's tame
lexicographer has already indicated that there isn't anything.)
I can't help wondering. What do lexicographers actually eat? And do you
need a licence?
I think they may be related to bookworms, and we know what they eat. It would appear that both species excrete dust....Ooh, unkind! (Though _some_ truth!)>
I remember noticing archaeological layers of dust on some of the books
in our local library - this was in the English literature section, and,
as I recall, Sterne was sleeping under a particularly heavy blanket. (I didn't disturb him.) I did wonder whether a chemical analysis might
reflect the history of the town's air, with coal dust, lead from petrol,
and diesel particles in different strata....
According to Stephen Fry (of QI fame) the notation is true.
(Why is the ph pronounced v?)
as it was used in a newspaper article published in 1825, so I doubt if
any of the recent work on the OED would apply.
Ah, sorry - I'm reading this in soc.genealogy.britain, where I assume
many of the readers are in the UK. Of course, the same constraints apply here, but AFAIK English counties at least still provide that access.
On 29/08/2025 05:02, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
Ah, sorry - I'm reading this in soc.genealogy.britain, where I assume
many of the readers are in the UK. Of course, the same constraints apply
here, but AFAIK English counties at least still provide that access.
I was just going to post something similar.-a Many libraries also allow membership to people outside their own area - I have membership of
several libraries.
On 2025/8/29 15:10:20, Hibou wrote:
Le 29/08/2025 |a 11:11, Richard Heathfield a |-crit :
On 29/08/2025 11:08, Hibou wrote:
Le 29/08/2025 |a 10:18, Steve Hayes a |-crit :
Does anyone here have access to the online Oxford dictionary, and if >>>>> so, does it say anything about this usage. [...]
I can see nothing relevant. (I think J. P. Gilliver's tame
lexicographer has already indicated that there isn't anything.)
(As another has worked out, he's my brother. [Author of "The Making of
the Oxford English Dictionary" - i. e. its latest {few years ago now}
history - which was well received as a good read, but be warned it's
priced as academic works often are. {Still, you could ask if your local library can borrow a copy ...} He tends to pop up on TV occasionally,
when something needs a talking head, or on "Balderdash and Piffle" for
those that remember that.])>>
Actually, he likes cooking! Yes, you'd probably need a licence - they're weird beasts ... (-:>I can't help wondering. What do lexicographers actually eat? And do you
need a licence?
I think they may be related to bookworms, and we know what they eat. ItOoh, unkind! (Though _some_ truth!)>
would appear that both species excrete dust....
I remember noticing archaeological layers of dust on some of the books(-:I remember when an American cousin and I were looking at archives in
in our local library - this was in the English literature section, and,
as I recall, Sterne was sleeping under a particularly heavy blanket. (I
didn't disturb him.) I did wonder whether a chemical analysis might
reflect the history of the town's air, with coal dust, lead from petrol,
and diesel particles in different strata....
the Northumberland record office near Ashington, we were delighted to
find the pay ledger for a colliery at which some of our ancestors had
worked - huge (about 3 by 2 feet IIRR) thing, with big pages listing,
for example, all the miners, with how much coal each had hewed each day
for a fortnight, and similar. I remember at the end of days finding my
hands had a thin layer of coal dust, which I remember thinking was
150-odd years old ...
On 28/08/2025 at 19:55, Sam Plusnet wrote:
On 28/08/2025 14:35, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2025 11:52:16 +0100, Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net>
wrote:
It was never official unlike other terms involved with e.g. mental
Ar an seacht|| l|i is fiche de m|! L||nasa, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
On 27/08/25 19:13, Jenny M Benson wrote:
On 27/08/2025 03:11, Peter Moylan wrote:
I have always had the impression that "interesting children" were >>>>>>> disabled in some way, but I can't find any evidence of that.
You may be right.-a There is a book for sale on Amazon.com called
"Parenting Interesting Children: A real life story of raising a child >>>>>> -a with special needs."
I mentioned the topic to my wife, who is a nurse, and she said it felt >>>>> like a medical term. The modern version might be FLK.
As part of the long march of making medical jargon as dry and
uninteresting as
possible (see also the ongoing attempted deprecation of eponyms in a
field
where it is unremarkable for abbreviations to be ambiguous), FLK is a
deprecated term, so not currently modern.
capacity or mental illness. It is more a form of informal shorthand
for s child showing signs of a possible underlying undiagnosed
condition.
The most well known such notation here was "NFN" = "Normal for
Norfolk" - a county which was said to have unusual levels of inbreeding.
I have no idea if either the notation or the inbreeding is/was true.
According to Stephen Fry (of QI fame) the notation is true.
(Why is the ph pronounced v?)
f -> v is a change that has occurred in the plural and other
inflections of many words in English like shelf, calf, leaf.
On 29/08/2025 05:02, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
Ah, sorry - I'm reading this in soc.genealogy.britain, where I
assume many of the readers are in the UK. Of course, the same
constraints apply here, but AFAIK English counties at least still
provide that access.
I was just going to post something similar. Many libraries also
allow membership to people outside their own area - I have membership
of several libraries.
While I was listening to the radio yesterday, it struck me: we write
roofs but we say rooves.
On 28/08/2025 20:05, Sam Plusnet wrote:
as it was used in a newspaper article published in 1825, so I doubt if
any of the recent work on the OED would apply.
The OED always gives examples of the usage of words with dates, oftenAnd, where they can, they show the _continuity_ of usage, by showing
going back hundreds of years.
On 29/08/2025 18:14, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
(-:I remember when an American cousin and I were looking at archives inI think the coal was quite a bit older than that (Devonian?).
the Northumberland record office near Ashington, we were delighted to
find the pay ledger for a colliery at which some of our ancestors had
worked - huge (about 3 by 2 feet IIRR) thing, with big pages listing,
for example, all the miners, with how much coal each had hewed each day
for a fortnight, and similar. I remember at the end of days finding my
hands had a thin layer of coal dust, which I remember thinking was
150-odd years old ...
On 29/08/25 23:02, Richard Tobin wrote:
f -> v is a change that has occurred in the plural and other
inflections of many words in English like shelf, calf, leaf.
While I was listening to the radio yesterday, it struck me: we write
roofs but we say rooves.
Followups set to SUE/AEU only [I won't see any further]
On 2025/8/29 5:8:13, Ross Clark wrote:
[snip]
You may be able to help me. My relationship with OED goes back to the
years when it was all done by paper and post. (I believe my first
communication was to point out a spurious citation for "mako (species of
shark)".) During the 1990s - early 2000s I fairly regularly sent lists
of notes from my readings of mainly 18th- and 19th-century books about
the Pacific, which sometimes filled a gap in documentation or clarified
a meaning. (As a side project I explored the mysterious origins of the
term "missionary position", and somewhere I have a letter from one of
the editors declaring that my solution -- Kinsey misquoting Malinowski
-- is the correct one.)
(Not the great Murray, was it?) That's fascinating! I always thought the usually-given explanation didn't sound very plausible.>
Nowadays I access OED Online via the library of the university where ISorry, can't really help: I don't want to (publicly or privately) give
used to teach. There is an online submission form for people who want to
contribute, but it is set up for one word at a time. My problem is that
I have one last list which, I'm pretty sure, I never got around to
submitting. It's maybe 30 items (from one source), with context and my
notes about possible relevance to OED. A small Word document. It would
put my mind at rest if I could send it to them, even if it does no more
than disappear into the great database. Can you suggest a suitable address?
out my brother's email address.
websites? There might be something there. You could always still use the post - using whatever address you had before! - and I'm sure it'd get processed; however, electronic communication would probably be better.
It was Ra*liff* colliery, one of the pits around a village near
Hauxley; the village (on what is now the A1068) was called Radcliffe
Terrace, but despite the "Terrace" part, was actually a quite large
village (bigger than Hauxley at times), until it disappeared almost
entirely in the 1970s. The first part of its name was variously
Ratliff, Radcliffe, and variations. Hmm, we've had another hot
summer, so maybe its outlines will have become visible again, let me
look ... Hmm, not very, certainly not as clear as it was in 2018.
(Google Maps aerial views are often great for seeing vanished
outlines!)
On 30/08/25 09:42, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
It was Ra*liff* colliery, one of the pits around a village near
Hauxley; the village (on what is now the A1068) was called Radcliffe Terrace, but despite the "Terrace" part, was actually a quite large village (bigger than Hauxley at times), until it disappeared almost entirely in the 1970s. The first part of its name was variously
Ratliff, Radcliffe, and variations. Hmm, we've had another hot
summer, so maybe its outlines will have become visible again, let me
look ... Hmm, not very, certainly not as clear as it was in 2018.
(Google Maps aerial views are often great for seeing vanished
outlines!)
When I was about 18 years old, so in the 1960s, my father showed me the ghost town of Whroo in Victoria. It had had a population of 10,000 in
the gold rush era, but afterwards it just disappeared. My father had
grown up halfway between Whroo and Moora (another town that's close to disappearing), so he was one of the few people who knew where Whroo was.
When we got there, all I could see was bush. Then, gradually, I noticed faint straight lines in the grass, that showed where the foundations of buildings had been. That was all there was to see.
Years later I went back there, and by following an overgrown bush track
I discovered the cemetery. It was mostly unmarked graves, but I did find
the grave of a French distant relative.
Later on the town was rediscovered by the local historical society, so
now there's an information board.
Ar an triochad|| l|i de m|! L||nasa, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
When I was about 18 years old, so in the 1960s, my father showed me
the ghost town of Whroo in Victoria. It had had a population of
10,000 in the gold rush era, but afterwards it just disappeared. My
father had grown up halfway between Whroo and Moora (another town
that's close to disappearing), so he was one of the few people who
knew where Whroo was.
When we got there, all I could see was bush. Then, gradually, I
noticed faint straight lines in the grass, that showed where the
foundations of buildings had been. That was all there was to see.
Years later I went back there, and by following an overgrown bush
track I discovered the cemetery. It was mostly unmarked graves, but
I did find the grave of a French distant relative.
Later on the town was rediscovered by the local historical society,
so now there's an information board.
rCLThe name is pronounced rCyroorCO, and is thought to be derived from an Aboriginal word meaning lips. The word refers to a small, natural
basin in the hilly terrain which held spring water. It is about 400
metres south-east of the Whroo cemetery.rCY
ItrCOs a striking name.
On 30/08/25 09:42, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
village (bigger than Hauxley at times), until it disappeared almost
entirely in the 1970s. The first part of its name was variously
(Google Maps aerial views are often great for seeing vanished
outlines!)
When I was about 18 years old, so in the 1960s, my father showed me the
ghost town of Whroo in Victoria. It had had a population of 10,000 in
the gold rush era, but afterwards it just disappeared. My father had
grown up halfway between Whroo and Moora (another town that's close to disappearing), so he was one of the few people who knew where Whroo was.
When we got there, all I could see was bush. Then, gradually, I noticed
faint straight lines in the grass, that showed where the foundations of buildings had been. That was all there was to see.
Years later I went back there, and by following an overgrown bush track
I discovered the cemetery. It was mostly unmarked graves, but I did find
the grave of a French distant relative.
Later on the town was rediscovered by the local historical society, so
now there's an information board.
On 2025/8/30 2:32:40, Peter Moylan wrote:
When I was about 18 years old, so in the 1960s, my father showed me the
ghost town of Whroo in Victoria. It had had a population of 10,000 in
the gold rush era, but afterwards it just disappeared. My father had
grown up halfway between Whroo and Moora (another town that's close to
disappearing), so he was one of the few people who knew where Whroo was.
When we got there, all I could see was bush. Then, gradually, I noticed
faint straight lines in the grass, that showed where the foundations of
buildings had been. That was all there was to see.
Has Google done aerial views of the area? They call them satellite views
on Google Maps, but - in England at least - they're mostly done from aircraft. I'm sure there are empty parts of the planet (and a lot of the oceans) where they do only use satellite views, though. Anyway, have a
look at the area you describe: you might be surprised what's visible.
And do go back from time to time: Google do renew their images sometimes.>
What he's referring to as online: in most cases, if you have a library
card, you have access to the OED online - and you don't have to go to
your library to access it - you can do so from home; just approach it
via your local (probably meaning your county, rather than town/village) library website, rather than going direct to the OED.
|In those early 19th-century newspaper snippets, the adjective
|"interesting" doesn't mean "curious" or "fascinating" in the
|modern sense. Instead, it carried a more affective,
|sympathetic meaning.
|
|In that period, interesting often meant "touching, affecting,
|likely to excite sympathy, pity, or tender feelings." It was
|commonly used in reference to children, young women, or
|unfortunate cases, to suggest they were appealing, pitiable,
|or deserving of compassion.
(As a side project I explored the mysterious origins of the
term "missionary position", and somewhere I have a letter from one of
the editors declaring that my solution -- Kinsey misquoting Malinowski
-- is the correct one.)
On 29/08/2025 11:08, Hibou wrote:
Le 29/08/2025 |a 10:18, Steve Hayes a |-crit :
Does anyone here have access to the online Oxford dictionary,
and if
so, does it say anything about this usage. [...]
I can see nothing relevant. (I think J. P. Gilliver's tame
lexicographer has already indicated that there isn't anything.)
I can't help wondering. What do lexicographers actually eat? And
do you need a licence?
Followups set to SUE/AEU only [I won't see any further]
On 2025/8/29 5:8:13, Ross Clark wrote:
[snip]
You may be able to help me. My relationship with OED goes back to the
years when it was all done by paper and post. (I believe my first
communication was to point out a spurious citation for "mako (species of
shark)".) During the 1990s - early 2000s I fairly regularly sent lists
of notes from my readings of mainly 18th- and 19th-century books about
the Pacific, which sometimes filled a gap in documentation or clarified
a meaning. (As a side project I explored the mysterious origins of the
term "missionary position", and somewhere I have a letter from one of
the editors declaring that my solution -- Kinsey misquoting Malinowski
-- is the correct one.)
(Not the great Murray, was it?) That's fascinating! I always thought the usually-given explanation didn't sound very plausible.>
Nowadays I access OED Online via the library of the university where ISorry, can't really help: I don't want to (publicly or privately) give
used to teach. There is an online submission form for people who want to
contribute, but it is set up for one word at a time. My problem is that
I have one last list which, I'm pretty sure, I never got around to
submitting. It's maybe 30 items (from one source), with context and my
notes about possible relevance to OED. A small Word document. It would
put my mind at rest if I could send it to them, even if it does no more
than disappear into the great database. Can you suggest a suitable address?
out my brother's email address.
websites? There might be something there. You could always still use the
post - using whatever address you had before! - and I'm sure it'd get processed; however, electronic communication would probably be better.
(As another has worked out, he's my brother.
On 29/08/2025 18:14, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
(As another has worked out, he's my brother.
Is he heavy?
On Fri, 29 Aug 2025 16:08:13 +1200, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz>
wrote:
(As a side project I explored the mysterious origins of the
term "missionary position", and somewhere I have a letter from one of
the editors declaring that my solution -- Kinsey misquoting Malinowski
-- is the correct one.)
"Missionary position" like "interesting children" is another odd term
that sometimes appears in written texts with little or no explanation
of its origin or meaning, so perhaps you wouldn't mind sharing your
solution.
On 31/08/2025 08:35, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 29/08/2025 18:14, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
(As another has worked out, he's my brother.
Is he heavy?
I'm going to need a bigger cage.
The "big town" in the area is Rushworth, population a little over
1,000. ( went to school there for a short while. A single room,
six grades and one teacher. We didn't have books, only slates and
slate pencils.) It has the widest main street I've ever seen. You
need a packed lunch to cross it. The town was founded in the gold
rush era, and they allowed for growth. These days there's a centre
divider with trees, separating two wide one-way streets, but I
remember when it was just a huge expanse of road, big enough to
contain a football oval.
The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, in his book _The Sexual Life of >Savages_ (1929) describes in great detail the sexual practices, beliefs
and attitudes of the Trobriand Islanders (southeastern Papua New
Guinea). But the expression "missionary position" is not to be found in
that book.
OED now has a couple of quotes from Malinowski. In one he notes that the >islanders "despise the European position and consider it unpractical and >improper" (p.284).
The other I will quote a little more fully than OED does:
"Even courting is conducted most decorously....I observed once or twice
that Yobukwa'u and his betrothed used to lie together on a mat in broad >daylight, decorously, but unmistakably leaning against each other and >holding hands....but when I mentioned this in discussing the whole
subject with some natives, I was told at once that it was a new fashion
and not correct according to old custom. Tokolibeba, once a famous Don
Juan, now a peppery old conservative and stickler for proprieties,
insisted that this was misinari si bubunela, "missionary fashion", one
of those novel immoralities introduced by Christianity." (p.403)
Note: Tokolibeba is not talking about any form of sexual intercourse.
This is what appears in Alfred C.Kinsey et al., _Sexual Behavior in the >Human Male_ (1948):
"It will be recalled that Malinowski records the nearly universal use of
a totally different position among the Trobrianders in the Southwestern >Pacific; and that he notes that caricatures of the English-American
position are performed around the communal camp-fires, to the great >amusement of the natives who refer to the position as the 'missionary >position'." (p.373).
On 30 Aug 2025, Peter Moylan wrote
-snip-
Many prairie towns in Canada have unnaturally wide streets, which we
The "big town" in the area is Rushworth, population a little over
1,000. ( went to school there for a short while. A single room,
six grades and one teacher. We didn't have books, only slates and
slate pencils.) It has the widest main street I've ever seen. You
need a packed lunch to cross it. The town was founded in the gold
rush era, and they allowed for growth. These days there's a centre
divider with trees, separating two wide one-way streets, but I
remember when it was just a huge expanse of road, big enough to
contain a football oval.
were told were surveyed to allow a standard farm wagon hauled by four
horses to make a U-turn in the street.
I don't know whether that's true or a popular myth, but it seemed a reasonable metric for laying out rural towns in the 19th and early
20th centuries.
On 29/08/2025 18:14, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
(As another has worked out, he's my brother.
Is he heavy?
On Fri, 29 Aug 2025 11:11:01 +0100, Richard Heathfield
<rjh@cpax.org.uk> wrote:
On 29/08/2025 11:08, Hibou wrote:
Le 29/08/2025 |a 10:18, Steve Hayes a |-crit :
Does anyone here have access to the online Oxford dictionary,
and if
so, does it say anything about this usage. [...]
I can see nothing relevant. (I think J. P. Gilliver's tame
lexicographer has already indicated that there isn't anything.)
I can't help wondering. What do lexicographers actually eat? And
do you need a licence?
You can probably find answers to that, and a few other things on this
topic, in "The Dictionary of Lost Words" -- see my review here:
<https://methodius.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-dictionary-of-lost-words-and-lost.html>
And if you want to see what lexicographers' gentle sense of humour is
like, watch this video made at the time of Brexit about what leaving EU
did to the OED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E55lG3ZV0EQ
On 2025/8/31 8:35:48, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 29/08/2025 18:14, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
(As another has worked out, he's my brother.
Is he heavy?
(-:
Actually he's lighter than I - he exercises more (not exercise as such,
just walks or cycles more than I do) and eats more healthily - despite
being taller than me by a small amount.
(Given the distribution, I must comment on my deliberations! I thought
about whether to put "me" or "I" towards the end there; "I" would be
more correct by old-fashioned grammar, but I consciously put "me" as I
felt "I" would be stilted. But then I realised I'd put "I" earlier in
the paragraph, without thinking.)
Briefly:
The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, in his book _The Sexual Life of Savages_ (1929) describes in great detail the sexual practices, beliefs
and attitudes of the Trobriand Islanders (southeastern Papua New
Guinea). But the expression "missionary position" is not to be found in
that book.
OED now has a couple of quotes from Malinowski. In one he notes that the islanders "despise the European position and consider it unpractical and improper" (p.284).
The other I will quote a little more fully than OED does:
"Even courting is conducted most decorously....I observed once or twice
that Yobukwa'u and his betrothed used to lie together on a mat in broad daylight, decorously, but unmistakably leaning against each other and holding hands....but when I mentioned this in discussing the whole
subject with some natives, I was told at once that it was a new fashion
and not correct according to old custom. Tokolibeba, once a famous Don
Juan, now a peppery old conservative and stickler for proprieties,
insisted that this was misinari si bubunela, "missionary fashion", one
of those novel immoralities introduced by Christianity." (p.403)
Note: Tokolibeba is not talking about any form of sexual intercourse.
This is what appears in Alfred C.Kinsey et al., _Sexual Behavior in the Human Male_ (1948):
"It will be recalled that Malinowski records the nearly universal use of
a totally different position among the Trobrianders in the Southwestern Pacific; and that he notes that caricatures of the English-American
position are performed around the communal camp-fires, to the great amusement of the natives who refer to the position as the 'missionary position'." (p.373).
Kinsey's book was a sensation when it was published, and a lot of people read it. The above remains the first known appearance of the expression
in print.
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