XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage   
   From: G6JPG@255soft.uk   
      
   On 2025/8/29 15:10:20, Hibou wrote:   
   > Le 29/08/2025 à 11:11, Richard Heathfield a écrit :   
   >> On 29/08/2025 11:08, Hibou wrote:   
   >>> Le 29/08/2025 à 10:18, Steve Hayes a écrit :   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Does anyone here have access to the online Oxford dictionary, and if   
   >>>> so, does it say anything about this usage. [...]   
   >>>   
   >>> I can see nothing relevant. (I think J. P. Gilliver's tame   
   >>> lexicographer has already indicated that there isn't anything.)   
      
   (As another has worked out, he's my brother. [Author of "The Making of   
   the Oxford English Dictionary" - i. e. its latest {few years ago now}   
   history - which was well received as a good read, but be warned it's   
   priced as academic works often are. {Still, you could ask if your local   
   library can borrow a copy ...} He tends to pop up on TV occasionally,   
   when something needs a talking head, or on "Balderdash and Piffle" for   
   those that remember that.])>>   
   >> I can't help wondering. What do lexicographers actually eat? And do you   
   >> need a licence?   
   >   
   Actually, he likes cooking! Yes, you'd probably need a licence - they're   
   weird beasts ... (-:>   
   > I think they may be related to bookworms, and we know what they eat. It   
   > would appear that both species excrete dust....   
   Ooh, unkind! (Though _some_ truth!)>   
   > I remember noticing archaeological layers of dust on some of the books   
   > in our local library - this was in the English literature section, and,   
   > as I recall, Sterne was sleeping under a particularly heavy blanket. (I   
   > didn't disturb him.) I did wonder whether a chemical analysis might   
   > reflect the history of the town's air, with coal dust, lead from petrol,   
   > and diesel particles in different strata....   
   >   
   (-:I remember when an American cousin and I were looking at archives in   
   the Northumberland record office near Ashington, we were delighted to   
   find the pay ledger for a colliery at which some of our ancestors had   
   worked - huge (about 3 by 2 feet IIRR) thing, with big pages listing,   
   for example, all the miners, with how much coal each had hewed each day   
   for a fortnight, and similar. I remember at the end of days finding my   
   hands had a thin layer of coal dust, which I remember thinking was   
   150-odd years old ...   
      
   --   
   J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)