[Ads-l] a "noszel" = a wonder

[George Thompson]

Not in DARE. OED.
>From an account of a practical joke, printed in the Rockland County Journal
(Nyack, N. Y.), May 18, 1878.  The setting is the 1830s.  The victim is
trudging toward the steamboat landing, but is quite a distance away; the
joker says "Are you headed for the boat?  Better hurry -- the horn just
sounded."  The stooge tries to run, luggage and all.  As he gets closer,
other jokers, who recognize the signs of a familiar prank, call "Hurry,
hurry, maybe you can make it."  Naturally, when he gets to the pier, he
finds out that the boat won't leave for another half hour.

"The rate of speed attained from this point can best be expressed in the
language of the narrator. "'Tis but a noszel how they would go; you could
see the flat of their feet all the way.""

GAT

-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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