bobonkt---(mystery solved?)

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

My thanks to Carlota Smith for her e-mail below, which I now share with ads-l. Thanks too to Arnold Zwicky for drawing the issue to her attention and to the people she contacted who then responded to her.  Their combined efforts seem to have borne fruit.

Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: Carlota S. Smith [mailto:carlotasmith at mail.utexas.edu]
Sent: Fri 7/14/2006 6:52 PM
To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard
Subject: bobonkt



Hi,  thanks for your comment about the meaning of 'bobonk', whhich
Arnold Zwicky forwarded to me.  I think that the meaning may have
been unearthed, as below:

bobonkt might also be known as bobonet or bobonknit.  It is the
process of winding yarn onto a bobbin or bobbins for knitting.  They
did find references to bobonet and boboknit in conjunction with
sewing and/or knitting for military uniforms.

This is via Gail Martin at the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives
in Old Washington Historic State Park. She didn't know the meaning of
bobonkt, but she contacted Russell Baker at the Arkansas History
Commission who put a team of crack interns on the project.  They came
up with the above.

>I also received a similar suggestion from Jonathan Wilson: It could be
>"bobonet", which can be found a few times in the old newspapers, I believe
>as a variant or misspelling of "bobinet"/"bobbinet"/"bobbin-net", which
is/was a type of net, like tulle or something like lace.

        Carlota Smith

--

Carlota S. Smith
Centennial Professor of Linguistics
Dept of Linguistics
University of Texas
Austin, Tx 78712-1196

Phone: office: 512-471-1701
              home:512-473-8440

email:CarlotaSmith at mail.utexas.edu

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