ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river...

[vida morkunas]

Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of
studying German.  Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate
to our Barry?

I put the word into Google, and eventually found the following:

http://zhurnal.net/ww/zw?BottomPower

Sitzfleisch is another one of those inimitably useful German words.
Literally it's "Sitting Meat". What it means is patience --- as associated
with the gluteus maximus and surrounding padding that enables someone to
perch on a hard chair for hours. In a chess context Sitzfleisch describes
the kind of dogged analysis that a good player has to do in a complex
position. (see Long Think (2002 April 9))

[...]

Not unrelated to Sitzfleisch is the phrase Bottom Power --- a West African
English dialect term for that special feminine callipygean ability to sway
male minds....

Vida.
vidamorkunas at telus.net



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Mark A Mandel
Sent: January 16, 2003 4:46 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the
mouth of the river...


(cc: to Mr. Cassidy, because I don't know if he's on the list)

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

        [snip list of sources]

#   And we don't have a single credible citation anywhere.
#   If all this is wrong, you must prove it is wrong.

        [snip list of "requirements"]

#   Then report back on any and all "Big Apples" that you find.
#   We'll listen to you!

I will add here for Mr. Cassidy's benefit -- since I don't know if he's
on the list and familiar with Barry's research -- that Barry's words are
not empty: he *does* this. Barry spends many hours in libraries all over
the country and around the world reading early sources and taking
copious notes, which he writes up as well as posting here. We -- I
daresay we all -- respect his industriousness, care, and sheer
sitzfleisch, and his findings have been a rich source of important data
for many of the lexicographers and other researchers on this list.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania