XPost: alt.usage.english, uk.media.tv.sf.drwho   
   From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   On 29/12/2025 10:32 a.m., Your Name wrote:   
   > On 2025-12-28 15:00:29 +0000, J. J. Lodder said:   
   >> Daniel70  wrote:   
   >>> On 28/12/2025 7:41 am, Sam Plusnet wrote:   
   >>>> On 27/12/2025 18:50, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:   
   >>>>> lar3ryca  posted:   
   >>>   
   >>>    
   >>>   
   >>>>>> And they meet at -40, which happens occasionally around here.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Most of France is starting each day at -2°C or so at present (which   
   >>>>> you   
   >>>>> probably wouldn't call cold in Regina), but not here: in Marseilles we   
   >>>>> do our shivering at 8°C or so.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> One consequence of the cold is that I learned a new word today:   
   >>>>> greloter   
   >>>>> means shiver.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Does it also have the other meaning of "shiver" - to break into small   
   >>>> fragments as in "shiver me timbers"?   
   >>>   
   >>> Might that be because the Water would get into the wood and, on a cold   
   >>> day, the water might freeze and, as ice takes up greater volumn than   
   >>> water, the 'timber' would crack .... disabling the ship??   
   >>   
   >> That is not the correct explanation,   
   >>   
   >> Jan   
   >   
   > True. The *correct* explanation is that it is simply a phrase made up by   
   > a writer back around 1795 (not the later Robert Loius Stevenson in 1883   
   > that some places claim), and there's no proof that any real sailors /   
   > pirates ever actually said it. It is based it on the definition of   
   > "shiver" meaning "to split in two".  :-)   
   >   
      
   What's your 1795 source? OED agrees that it's "a mock oath attributed in   
   comic fiction to sailors", rather than a real one; but their only   
   citation is from Marryat's _Jacob Faithful_ (1834).   
      
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