The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Wofano Wotanto]

Well, that's one more I'll never read again. This has been a really bad week for that.

 

[Cadence]

Reading a short story with it in the title and so went to google. I had no idea:

 

[Gradine]

Someone must've come in hot. I feel ... pretty OK, really, that I have no idea who or in which thread.

Came back hot

And just like that...

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Reading a short story with it in the title and so went to google. I had no idea:

Interesting. I've seen the clew spelling used (probably anachronistically) in mysteries but only in the modern sense of clue. Would not have guessed at yarn, much less the Theseus & the Minotaur myth and its kin, but it makes sense.

I wonder if the nautical term "clue-line" (which are used to raise and lower sails) uses "clue" part because of how complex a ship's rigging can be - a veritable maze on some vessels - rather than the roughly synonymous "guide-rope" instead. Maybe it's just a matter of evolving specialization in terminology, though. There are other things that could be called guide-ropes or guide-lines on a sailing ship, after all.

 

[payn]

And just like that...

The way I hear it, Soze is some kind of butcher.

 

[Cadence]

Interesting. I've seen the clew spelling used (probably anachronistically) in mysteries but only in the modern sense of clue. Would not have guessed at yarn, much less the Theseus & the Minotaur myth and its kin, but it makes sense.

I wonder if the nautical term "clue-line" (which are used to raise and lower sails) uses "clue" part because of how complex a ship's rigging can be - a veritable maze on some vessels - rather than the roughly synonymous "guide-rope" instead. Maybe it's just a matter of evolving specialization in terminology, though. There are other things that could be called guide-ropes or guide-lines on a sailing ship, after all.

Going OED...

Clew-line goes back to at least 1627 "A tackle connecting the clew of a sail to the upper yard or the mast, by which it is drawn up in furling; sometimes, but not generally, applied to the clew-garnets."

Where the clew is "A lower corner of a square sail, or the aftmost corner of a fore-and-aft sail, to which are made fast the tacks and sheets by which it is extended and held to the lower yard."

which was then also used for "The expanse of the wings (of a bird)."

Looking around briefly, none of the top links showed anything about the etymology that was different in this useage. The Real Origins of Boating's Most Common Terms (Part 4) Seems to agree with you, but I can't vouch for it.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Clew-line goes back to at least 1627 "A tackle connecting the clew of a sail to the upper yard or the mast, by which it is drawn up in furling; sometimes, but not generally, applied to the clew-garnets."

That's about the same time the etymology sites I looked at said "clew/clue" shifted meaning from "ball/skein of yarn/thread" to "guide to a solution" - believe they cited 1620. Interesting coincidence if the two were unrelated.

The Real Origins of Boating's Most Common Terms (Part 4) Seems to agree with you, but I can't vouch for it.

I'm kind of dubious about that one even if it does sort of support my musings, given that several other (non-nautical) sites fail to even consider it and just use the simpler path to the shift above. Occam's razor suggests the simpler explanation is best, although who knows with linguistic evolution?

 

[Cadence]

Elsethread:

And yet previous responses in the thread didn't make that clear....

 

[MNblockhead]

I now have West Side Story but with dancing Turkeys in my brain :-/

"When you're a tom, You’re a tom all the way From your first brooder hub To your last dyin’ day."
"Tom, tom, crazy tom, Get cool, tom. Got a squabble In your gobble, Keep coolly cool, tom."

 

[Cadence]

I just (re)learned that birds don't fart. Most mammals do but not sloths. Should I start a D&D monster thread asking which monsters do and don't fart? Do Kenku and Aaracokra? (Is there poop rate more avian or humanoid. Would the worst bird humanoid be the one based on the Canada Goose?)

Edit: I think I need to go to bed before I ask about either mimics or dragons.