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  1. #31
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    Well, I'd just like to say that even though I've spent the whole day at Rosehill racecourse, the above is the biggest load of horse I've seen all day.

    Keep up the good work all, you make me proud
    "I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."

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  3. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by craigb
    Why would an Italian want an English translation?
    Craig, he got it translated into Engrish because the Chinaman couldn't speak Italian, he tried to learn it once but he kept getting a CRAMP in his arms.

  4. #33
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    Nothing like turning up after the horse has bolted. But anyway...

    Ernest Joyce in his so called "Bible" of woodworking (The techniques of Furniture Making) uses both terms constantly written as Cramp/Clamp so he (as a Pom)obviously recognised that both names were often applied to the same thing.

    My Dad was telling me that (like in previous response) that my Grandpa worked on a jarrah bridge that was built near our farm just after WW1. Some of the (what I would call dogs) that permantly "Clamped" the logs together were defintely called "Cramps" as opposed to the "Spanish windlass Clamps" they used for final positioning.

    So why is it called a "Spanish" windlass???
    Squizzy

    "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" {screamed by maths teacher in Year 8}

  5. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by vsquizz
    So why is it called a "Spanish" windlass???
    Thats the name given to Miriam.
    She/he/it is of Spanish decent, and when you go for the grope, it puts the wind up you..



    Al
    Last edited by ozwinner; 12th June 2004 at 09:00 PM.

  6. #35
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    So why is it called a "Spanish" windlass???
    Speaking to my sister, my grandfather used to explain away the pong after eating spicy food by saying "it's just the Spanish wind lass."

    My other grandfather on the other hand bequeathed me his dictionary(TRUE!) and it is a beauty...a 1941 edition of Funk and Wagnells 1921 "New Standard Dictionary of the English Language : New York AND London edition! All 2814 pages of tissue paper and fine print of it.

    Until the question was asked, I had always assumed that a Chinese Windlass and a Spanish Windlass were one and the same, but no. Read on

    Windlass 1. Mech A horizontal drum for winding, or for hoisting by winding;proerly, one operated by radial arms, removable bars, or a pawl-and-rachet mechanism; loosely, any form of horizontal hoisting drium, especcially that form of winch familiar in well-curbs consisting of a drum and cranks. 2. A device in the form of a windlass for bending the bow of an arbalest. -Chinese or differential windlass. a horizontal wheel and azle having two drums of different diameter on the same axis, one of which pays out as the other winds up, the power being increased in inverse proportion to the barrel diameters. -SpanishNaut 1.a purchase made by thrusting a handspike or the like throught the bight of a rope with a rolling hitch.2.A rope purchase for bringing together parts of a shroud or other rope before seizing them.3.Surg. An imporovised tourniquet made by tying a bandage about a limb or other part over a stick, and then tightening it by twisting the stick.
    None of that actually tells us why "Spanish", but the references to the nautical bits would have me guessing that when the Armadas ruled, the poor old Poms couldn't understand how the Spanish guys could set sail so fast while they still had a hundred crew tugging on string.... guess what sort of windlass Cortez' mob were using?


    Cheers,

    P
    Professor of Guessology
    BTW the good book casts no further light on what we already know of Clamps and Cramps..the definitions are clear, but the pictures are all under the "Clamp" definition...further reinforcing my theory on it being a Seppo contraction, they are lovely outline sketches as though included for the purpose of colouring in.
    Last edited by bitingmidge; 12th June 2004 at 09:11 PM.

  7. #36
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    Oh Dear....I think I'm sorry I asked
    Squizzy

    "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" {screamed by maths teacher in Year 8}

  8. #37
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    cramp<SUP>1</SUP> (krămp)
    n.
    1. A sudden, involuntary, spasmodic muscular contraction causing severe pain, often occurring in the leg or shoulder as the result of strain or chill.
    2. A temporary partial paralysis of habitually or excessively used muscles.
    3. cramps Spasmodic contractions of the uterus, such as those occurring during menstruation or labor, usually causing pain in the abdomen that may radiate to the lower back and thighs.

    v., cramped, cramp·ing, cramps.

    To affect with or as if with a cramp.

    To suffer from or experience cramps.

    [Middle English crampe, from Old French, of Germanic origin.]

    cramp<SUP>2</SUP> (krămp)
    n.
    1. A frame with an adjustable part to hold pieces together; a clamp.
    2. A cramp iron.
    3. A compressing or restraining force, influence, or thing.
    4. A confined position or part.
    tr.v., cramped, cramp·ing, cramps.
    1. To hold together with a cramp.
    2. To shut in so closely as to restrict the physical freedom of: were cramped in the tiny cubicle.
      1. To steer (the wheels of a vehicle) to make a turn.
      2. To jam (a wheel) by a short turn.
    adj. Cramped.

    idiom:

    cramp (one's) style
    1. To restrict or prevent from free action or expression.
    SO

    Squizzy's Dictionary: Spanish Cramp: an iodiom or proxy for an unresolvable disolution in the English/Septic/Oz Language. Likely to result in robust debate over genetic orgins, questions of parentage, political persuassions or anything else worth chucking in; found in use amongst woodies.
    Useage: "as useful as a Spanish Cramp" implying that the new tool you just bought is about as handy as a hip pocket in a singlet.
    The term also implies endearment to personages of Spanish, North American, Italian and Chinese decent. The poms of course now how endeared they! already are.
    Squizzy

    "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" {screamed by maths teacher in Year 8}

  9. #38
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    Oh Dear....I think I'm sorry I asked

    __________________
    Nah...you're bluffin'

    P

  10. #39
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    Default Eureka!!!

    My Seppo theory starts to fall into place, and I quote from Alburnum's Archives > Cramps and Cramping
    The common C-clamp or as they say in the Mother Country, G-cramps, while the word is descriptive, I being the rebellious colonialist that I am will use the common term clamps.*
    So according to ONE US source (and I won't sleep this week till I find more!!!) The REBELLIOUS COLONIALISTS changed the words!!!!

    WHoooooooo...must have been some rebellion!:eek: :eek:

    Cheers,

    P

  11. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by bitingmidge
    WHoooooooo...must have been some rebellion!:eek: :eek:
    And all that because a tea party went wrong.


    Peter.

  12. #41
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    Default He was just asking

    Don't give up Greg, we blokes seem to wander off the subject all the time.
    Cramps don't arise from salt deficiency its dehydration. Dehydration is fixed by drinking water but if you sweat too much and drink too much then you can have an electrolyte deficiency and your car wont start.

    Now where was I.

  13. #42
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    Another spanner to toss into the works, a quick cut and paste:
    You’ve done a great job of listing many of the explanations that one comes across for the origin of this Australian term for British immigrants. You could have added a possible derivation from the common naval slang term for Portsmouth, Pompey, or from pommes de terres for potatoes, much eaten by British troops in World War One, or an abbreviation for Permit of Migration. All of them except your last two, I have to tell you, are folk etymology (which, for some reason I’ve never understood, loves to invent origins based on acronyms).
    Part of the reason for all these theories growing up is that there was for decades much doubt over the true origin of the expression, with various Oxford dictionaries, for example, continuing to say that there is no firm evidence for the pomegranate theory. That origin was described by D H Lawrence in his Kangaroo of 1923: “Pommy is supposed to be short for pomegranate. Pomegranate, pronounced invariably pommygranate, is a near enough rhyme to immigrant, in a naturally rhyming country. Furthermore, immigrants are known in their first months, before their blood ‘thins down’, by their round and ruddy cheeks. So we are told”. You will note that he had to explain the pronunciation that we would now take to be the usual one: in standard English it used not to have the first “e” sounded, with pome often rhyming with home.
    It is now pretty well accepted that the pomegranate theory is close to the truth, though there’s a slight twist to take note of. H J Rumsey wrote about it in 1920 in the introduction to his book The Pommies, or New Chums in Australia. He suggested that the word began life on the wharves in Melbourne as a form of rhyming slang. An immigrant was at first called a Jimmy Grant (was there perhaps a famous real person by that name around at the time?), but over time this shifted to Pommy Grant, perhaps as a reference to pomegranate, because the new chums did burn in the sun. Later pommy became a word on its own and was frequently abbreviated still further. The pomegranate theory was also given some years earlier in The Anzac Book of 1916.
    Whatever your beliefs about this one, what seems to be true is that the term is not especially old, dating from the end of the nineteenth century at the earliest, certainly not so far back as convict ship days.
    Stupidity kills. Absolute stupidity kills absolutely.

  14. #43
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    Default Not giving up

    Oldblock,

    I love the wandering off topic. It more closely mirrors a normal conversation and I can then understand the expressions through context. Of course, following a few threads just gives me a small peek into your world. I still like your interactions with each other. Here in the States we seem to get nasty with each other whenever there is a difference of opinion. You guys just have a superior sense of humor. Thanks to all who have indulged me.

    Greg

  15. #44
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    There is also a strong rumour that California is not a State but an independent entity, any truth in this?
    Stupidity kills. Absolute stupidity kills absolutely.

  16. #45
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    Red face My (first) Two Cents...

    Good Afternoon. My wife has been hassling me to stop lurking and post; I was hoping to have something pertinent to say about woodwork, however...

    I saw a movie on tv years ago about the first modern Olympics. Featured was an Australian who apparently won the first gold medal of the games for the 100 metres, or something? Anyway, this character was being pressured by the English team bigwigs to run for them instead. Our bloke refused on the grounds that his grandfather was "a Pommy"; that is, he had the letters P.O.M.E - "Prisoner Of Mother England" - on his headstone.

    While I'm at it, I tend to call squeezing stuff together from the outsides "clamping" and using levers or wedges (applying pressure from one direction) "cramping" (but I definitely ain't no expert).

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