Comments on: Guardian 25,165 / Brendan

By: Arthur Hay

Arthur Hay — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 22:29:21 +0000

Thanks to the Guardian Weekly international, the Australians are a week behind again, and no one may therefore read this, but in this continent “tabaret” means a place of gambling and entertainment, usually within a hotel or club, from the initials of Totalisator Agency Board: TAB + (cab)aret.

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:02:36 +0000

Was away yesterday so have only just chanced on your link, William. It's a lot of fun. And the things you learn ... for example I now know that Snow White did and didn't have a shortage of dwarfs !

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 10:53:38 +0000

Many thanks for that, William - very entertaining, as you say. [If you're still around, Kathryn's Dad, I somehow missed your latest comment yesterday but one source I found this morning gave, for a company of walruses, 'herd, huddle, pod - and ugly'!]

By: William

William — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 10:31:37 +0000

Thank you Eileen. I enjoyed this and your blog.

Just to finish off the collective nouns theme, it’s hard to say who decides on this kind of thing. The original set were probably laid down by drunken Oxbridge Dons but more recently the field seems to be wide open. My favouirite compiler is Ojo; not because he is in any way authoritative or comprehensive, but because he sets out to entertain. Others may enjoy it too…my personal favourite is “an ambush of widows”!

http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/index.html#footnote

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 09:20:11 +0000

Many thanks, Davy.

I’ve bookmarked it now – I thought I had before.

By: Davy

Davy — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 08:56:59 +0000

Eileen,

Here’s the link to the Brendan interview :-

http://vimeo.com/13005740

By: FumbleFingers

FumbleFingers — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:50:43 +0000

Sticking firmly off-topic, I'll just say the collective noun for members of my family is a toomany - which neologism some unkind souls have suggested is grammatically akin to sheep, in that the same word can apply to a multitude or just one!

By: tupu

tupu — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:01:52 +0000

For what it’s worth, OED only gives exaltation in this context and its earliest quotation of the phrase is from Lydgate c.1430.

By: sheffieldhatter

sheffieldhatter — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:49:01 +0000

Re 22: Exaltation of Larks, I have a book of that title written by James Lipton in 1968. He traces the origin of the phrase to The Book of St Albans (1486), one of the earliest books in print. As Chambers derives exaltation from exaltare (from altus – height) and exultation from ex(s)ultare (from salire – to leap), the “a” spelling seems more appropiate than the “u”. Apologies if this covers the same ground as the last time it came up.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:20:36 +0000

Hi muz

I don’t remember seeing your name before so welcome if you’re a new contributor [and / or 'lurker'] and apologies if you’re not.

If you add a comment later in the day, it’s often helpful to look at preceding comments – which often means a bit of a trawl! – as well as the blog.

Today, you’ll see there have been comments on the bridge element in comments 20 and 22.

Hope to hear from you again.

Hi Davy

Yes, that was a lovely interview, link provided by Andrew, I’m 99.99% sure – I hope he’ll confirm and repeat.

You didn’t need to rub in ANGER – I think I’ll be ‘looking back at’ it for a long time to come!