I have been interested in the expression "dooryard stop" recently. This is an expression that is used to describe a short visit in someone's dooryard (driveway) that often means not staying long enough to even get out of the car. It is the opposite of what could be called conversational diesel...
Why do you have a hard time believing that this term's usage is restricted to a small area?
I think one's own words always seem to one as if they should be used everywhere. There was a word I used here recently (I can't remember what it was now), that I was surprised to discover was a New Zealandism. I had always assumed it was used everywhere.
Hmm, when I hear "stove up", the first thing I think of is pregnancy. I think I'm subconsciously drawing parallels between stove and oven, as in "bun in the". Weird.
Is stove-in — smashed inward — an archaic expression?
Is it a regional expression? I was speaking with someone from my hometown (Salem, MA), and he used the word during our conversation. Made me think about regional language quirks.
Any ideas out there?
There we go. Mark Beadles has answered my question.
And Barrie and Malvolio. What an intelligent community we have here.
Freaky. I just moved my mouse to upvote that question, and the number increased (due to someone else's upvote) just as my mouse pointer moved onto the arrow.
Then I remembered that I no longer have an account on this site, so can't upvote stuff anyway.
Like the train stops for a few minutes at a particular station, so there's a cafe next to the station that does all of its business in those few minutes.
1. A small station or town at which trains do not stop unless requested by a signal given on a whistle. 2. One of a series of rapid, superficial visits. 3. Used attrib. to designate a journey with a lot of brief halts; spec. one by a campaigning politician that takes in many undistinguished places in this way. Also fig.
> Hence ˈwhistle-stop v., (a).trans., to travel through (a region) on a whistle-stop tour (rare); (b).intr., to make a whistle-stop tour; also ˈwhistle-stopping vbl. sb.
I almost asked about midwest today, but it sounds too peeving. There was a news article that called OK, LA, AL, MS midwestern states. People outside the midwest have queer ideas of what the midwest is.
That would be as screwy as the dummies who think that OK and AR and LA and MS and AL are in the Midwest. It is offensive to us Midwesterners to group us with those Southern states.
Also, the West was kinda related to anywhere that was a territory in the 19th century.
And do you honestly believe that someone who says that your state and some southern state are both part of the Midwest intends anything remotely related to "you are a traitor"?
> ‘Awake! Awake!’ he cried. ‘It is a red dawn. Strange things await us by the eaves of the forest. Good or evil, I do not know; but we are called. Awake!’
> OE. efes, fem. = OFris. ose, Flem. (Kilian) oose, OHG. obasa (MHG. obse, mod. dial.G. obsen) eaves, porch (:-WGer. *obis(w)a, *obas(w)a) = ONor. ups (Sw. dial. uffs), Goth. ubizwa porch; prob. f. same root as over. The final -s has been mistaken for the sign of the pl., and in mod. Eng. the word is commonly treated as pl., eave being occas. used as the sing. The forms ME. ovese, WSomerset office (Elworthy), point to an OE. form *ofes:-WGer. *obas(w)a.
@Cerberus Vance has girls?
898 O.E. Chron. an. 894 ― Þa foron hie··bi swa hwaþerre efes swa hit þonne fierdleas wæs. C. 1325 Gloss. W. de Biblesw. in Wright Voc. 159 ― Desouz l’overayl, under the wode-side wode-hevese. C. 1340 Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 1178 ― Þus laykez þis lorde by lynde wodez euez.
> By the afternoon they had reached the eaves of Mirkwood, and were resting almost beneath the great overhanging boughs of its outer trees.
> We have come to the eaves of the Golden Wood.
> Northwestward stalked the dark forest of Fangorn; still ten leagues away stood its shadowy eaves, and its further slopes faded into the distant blue.
I have been interested in the expression "dooryard stop" recently. This is an expression that is used to describe a short visit in someone's dooryard (driveway) that often means not staying long enough to even get out of the car. It is the opposite of what could be called conversational diesel...
Is stove-in — smashed inward — an archaic expression?
Is it a regional expression? I was speaking with someone from my hometown (Salem, MA), and he used the word during our conversation. Made me think about regional language quirks.
Any ideas out there?
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…