A "fifty-six"?
Wilson Gray
hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Apr 3 18:27:18 UTC 2008
I got "weighty" and "fundamental development, well adapting him for
the judicial bench" had me ROTFLMAO!
-Wilson
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 11:51 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Re: A "fifty-six"?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> At 4/3/2008 11:09 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >"[A] fifty-six [is a] weight of 4 stone."
> >
> >Damn, Joel! I'm impressed! That would never have occurred to me! {No,
> >I'm not being sarcastic. I *am* impressed. I would have totally missed
> >that connection.]
> >
> >-Wilson
>
> I assume you didn't miss the pun on "fundamental", however! Or the
> one on "weighty": heavy in pounds, both of mass and of wealth (which
> was of course equated to importance).
>
> Joel
>
>
>
>
> >On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:50 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > Subject: A "fifty-six"?
> > >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > In _The House of the Seven Gables_, I find:
> > >
> > > "Though looked upon as a weighty man among his contemporaries, in
> > > respect of animal substance; and as favored with a remarkable degree
> > > of fundamental development, well adapting him for the judicial bench,
> > > we conceive that the modern Judge Pyncheon, if weighed in the same
> > > balance with his ancestor, would have required at least an
> > > old-fashioned fifty-six, to keep the scale in equilibrio."
> > >
> > > [And they say Hawthorne was humorless.]
> > >
> > > What is a fifty-six? Not in OED2. A weight of 4 stone, I
> > > assume--but was this a common unit for weights used in a scale,
> > > perhaps for animals?
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
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> >
> >
> >--
> >All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> >come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> >-----
> > -Sam'l Clemens
> >
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> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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