DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[plaques]

See if you can find 'Vault' in your dictionary relating to a pubs 'Tap Room' . A little before my drinking time but I'm sure I've come across them.

[Stanley]

Used to be common P. I always assumed it was related to cellars.

[Tizer]

Vault or vaults was used to describe the bar in some of the very old pubs in Blackburn around what was known by locals as the Barbary Coast. Small pubs, sometimes only the one room, or a bar at the front (standing room only) and a small room with chairs and tables at the back. Narrow frontage. probably frequented most when there was the old cattle market at Blakey Moor. There's a lot about Blackburn pubs here... LINK

[plaques]

But I've never been able to find a dictionary definition linking it to a serving bar. Its always something to do with storage, cellar, etc. Perhaps the 'intellectuals' who wrote dictionaries never used to go in pubs!

[Stanley]

That's as good an answer as any and very likely true. They frequented inns and hostelries.

[Bruff]

Some pubs were called Vaults. For example, the Bakers Vaults in Stockport, in the old market area. Used to frequent that a lot in the early/mid-1980s as I was friendly with a girl from Stockport.

Still a pub, run by the local Robinsons Brewery.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I remember it well Richard...... "If the bottom falls out of your world, drink four pints of Robinson's. The next morning the world will fall out of your bottom....." (Sorry about that....)

[Stanley]

Fenestration is a word that gets very little mileage these days. How many of you remember like me, the 'Defenestration of Prague'? One of the more interesting snippets of history I was taught! (LINK)

[Tripps]

Fascinating - I'd always taken it to mean 'smashing someone's windows' rather than throwing someone from a high window. I've seen it used in modern politics here, in the last few years, and assumed that meaning. Can't help comparing it to the modern method of some groups in dealing with gay people. I wonder if there is any common religious connection.

" Soon after, the two Regents and their secretary were defenestrated, but they survived the 70-foot (21-metre) fall from the third floor.[4][5] Catholics maintained the men were saved by angels or by the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who caught them; later Protestant pamphleteers asserted that they survived due to falling onto a dung heap, a story unknown to contemporaries and probably coined in response to divine intervention claims. Philip Fabricius was later ennobled by the emperor and granted the title Baron von Hohenfall (literally "Baron of Highfall").[6] "

The more I learn of history - the less I trust it. Why does the 'Virgin Mary' seems only to appear to devout Catholics, and never to Buddhists or Eskimos?

[plaques]

Why does the 'Virgin Mary' seems only to appear to devout Catholics,

I think you have already answered your question Tripps, Because they believe in it. All religions are based on belief but perhaps tinged with a bit of fear. But that's their choice.

[Tizer]

Defenestration...as usual the Germans are more straightforward about their words. They just combine fenster (window) with sturz (fall).

[Stanley]

I always liked the way the Germans couple words to express specific meanings, consider Fahrad (go wheel) for a bike, Busthalten for a brassiere and luftschuttzraum for air raid shelter. My friend Ethel who is fluent French speaker thought that the French word for brassiere (in itself derived from the French) 'Soute en gorge' (Throat supporter) is hilarious.

[Stanley]

In our area 'syke', 'dyke' or 'sough' are names for drains. Is this local or more widespread. I have seen 'rhine' used in the same way in Eastern counties.

[Stanley]

Round here we use 'fancy' as a substitute for imagine. Is that common?

[PanBiker]

Fancy that! I would think (or imagine so) Stanley.

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

I noticed that a new usage for the word 'platoon' emerged yesterday. It is being applied to the groups of wagons controlled by the leading wagon.

[Stanley]

'Teem' for pour? Where did that come from?

[Tripps]

This took a bit of finding. I remember the usage, but it was a long time ago.

Verb
1. (intransitive; often followed by down or with rain) to pour in torrents: it's teeming down
2. (transitive) to pour or empty out

[Stanley]

Webster says it was used before 900AD in Middle English and derives from Old Norse, to lessen, deprive or pour out, empty.

[chinatyke]

Teem it down drain!
It's teeming down (with rain).
It's teeming with people. - A bit different!

[Stanley]

'Siling down with rain'. Comes from the way milk pours through a sile which is a cloth filter used when milking cattle.

[Stanley]

I remember one listening to Enoch Powell in a discussion and he used the word condescend in the context of agreement with a point of debate. He said "I refuse to con-descend to your argument". His pronunciation, splitting the elements of the word up, made you realise what the root of this usage is. Since then I often use that technique to interrogate the root of words and it can be interesting as one element is often an archaism that never gets used in any other way. Think about grace-ful, bale-ful and more common ones like upper-most. Once you notice this and start subconsciously applying the technique as you listen you get a much richer apprehension of usage.

[Stanley]

I've just heard a new word for me. 'trigamist', a person who has married three times.

[BillHowcroft]

Or a quagmirist - a chap bogged down in four.