[Ads-l] OT: Sheelanagige was Re: It was not permitted to pass.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Toothed?  That's a new on on me.

As for the Siren....well, she *is* a Siren.

JL

On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 2:48 PM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> On 5/23/17 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
>
>> Date:    Mon, 22 May 2017 14:36:58 -0400
>> From:    Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: It was not permitted to pass.
>>
>> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 12:07 PM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
>> >
>> wrote:
>> Perhaps you've observed that the OED def. is, shall we say, very discreet.
>>
>> About as discreet as the version now used by Starbucks. Apparently, they
>> had no idea at all what that image was a symbol of. There are also
>> continental variants. I came across it first in the journal,_Via Domitia_,
>> noted as a former or a current feature of the exterior and the interior -
>> on finials of pews, etc. - of churches in the Midi.
>>
>> The original version used by Starbucks is below, if the system permits it
>> to pass.
>>
>> http://idsgn.org/posts/starbucks-reveals-new-logo-drops-wordmark/
>>
>> -- -Wilson ----- 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.
>> -Mark Twain
>>
> I don't get it: the Starbucks logo is a mermaid (or as later identified a
> siren). A sheelanagig is a very different thing: a grotesque squatting
> female form with a toothed vulva.
>
> Yeah, I'd say that the OED def leaves out all the differentia that you
> would use to identify a sheelanagig. It's discreet to the point of being
> useless.
>
> ---Amy West
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org