[Ads-l] "sea-pouse": a word for DARE?

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue May 31 02:10:43 UTC 2016


I sea-pouse this is the same sort of effect mentioned in a Peterson's National Magazine piece from 1867 (in which the sea-pouse draws in a skiff) and in an 1884 story in the Argos (IL) Reflector in which the sea-pouse effectively discourages salt-water eels from entering a pond.  Those are the only two relevant sea-pouses, or sea-pice, that show up on a search.

LH

> On May 30, 2016, at 9:50 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> 
>            *Extract of a letter from East-Hampton, (Long-Island) June 29,
> 1788*.
> 
>            It is well known to many that where a sandy shore is washed by
> the ocean, the bottom is subject to continual variation, which produce, or
> are produced, by a kind of eddy to the waves, by which any buoyant
> substance will be carried, sometimes with great rapidity, against the
> swell, back to the sea.
> 
>            The South side of Long-Island, especially at the East end, is
> remarkable for these reverting currents, which the natives call *sea-pouse*,
> and cautiously avoid.
>            Daily Advertiser (New York, N. Y.), July 10, 1787, p. 2, col. 1
> 
> I don't have the later vols. of DARE; it's not in the OED.
> 
> GAT
> 
> -- 
> George A. Thompson
> The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998..
> 
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