XPost: rec.arts.drwho, alt.usage.english
From: doctor@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca
In article <10it3pp$pcf7$1@dont-email.me>,
Your Name wrote:
>On 2025-12-29 04:43:43 +0000, Ross Clark said:
>> 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).
>
>The phrase first appeared in print in 1795, but became popular after
>Robert Louis Stevenson used in it "Treasure Island" in 1883.
>Amoung other places:
>
>More recently it was popularised by Popeye and the Spongebob
>Squarepants character Mr Krabs. "Shiver Me Timbers" is also the name of
>a recent British comedy horror movie, very very loosely based on Popeye
>(Popeye came out of copyright, so of course fools made a ridiculous
>movie).
>
Let us go origin 1795.
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@nk.ca Ici doctor@nk.ca
Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ;
Merry Christmas 2025 and Happy New Year 2026
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
