Saturday, November 04, 2006
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Have fun with a new word each day. I'll choose a word. You make up a meaning.
Visit my Writing Bug website
How to Play:
1. I choose an obscure dictionary word.
2. You invent a wacky meaning and add it as a comment.
3. After a certain time I list the true meaning and choose a winner for the invented meaning.
There are no prizes, just lots of fun!
Remember, children use this site too.
2. You invent a wacky meaning and add it as a comment.
3. After a certain time I list the true meaning and choose a winner for the invented meaning.
There are no prizes, just lots of fun!
Remember, children use this site too.
About Me
- Word Imp
- I am a children's author who has had a handful of books published by trade publishers. They're in book shops and libraries. I've also had a sackful of books published by educational publishers. These are mainly found in schools. I love words and that's why I invented this blog site.
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By posting to this site, you give the site a nonexclusive right to any copyrighted works posted.
What I'm writing...
- Picture books in my head...
- Job applications so I can earn actual money.
- Boring stuff for companies to earn actual money.
- This blog
What I'm reading...
- Penina Petersen's Table Tucker
- Rereading my fave - The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
- Mike Gayle's To Do List
- Any good biography
- The dictionary!
11 comments:
Cordwainer was actually once a boys name. The kind of people who called their sons 'Cordwainer' were originally celebrities searching for a highly individual name. However they were swiftly followed by a number of copycat 'Cordwainers' and thereby the name lost all of it's 'specialness' and became synonymous with a certain type of celebrity obsessed individual whom nobody wished to emulate. This is why you don't hear of many men called Cordwainer these days.
Cordwainer is a specialized electrician. The specialty is very rare, because of the extensive training that is involved. Like doctors, they have additional schooling and apprenticeship. There are only 100 credentialed cordwainers in the world. They have to have 40 continuing credits every two years. They make a six-figure salary. Most of them work in construction of skyscrapers.
I bet it's some kind of cloth or maybe a loom to make corduroy?
Oops, I got tripped up over my own English in my last attempt at a comment. :) Here's my attempt for 'cordwainer':
A cordwainer is the machine that logging communities used to fish tree trunks from the river after floating them from the place where they were cut to the woodmill where they would be made into planks and poles. The contraption, like a crane with a swinging platform, was suspended over the river at the dam where the logs would come to rest. A cord of wood was loaded onto the swinging-arm platform to be removed from the water, hence the name.
A cordwainer is someone who keeps getting their cords tangled.
When you have a gas-powered lawnmower or chainsaw that starts by pulling a cord, the cordwainer is the place inside the mower where the cord gets coiled up in preparation for use.
Greta's is excellent! I live in Oregon, which has a rich logging history, so I find that sounds entirely plausable.
However, "cordwainer" is actually a term for an old fisherman who sits on the beach, repairing fishing nets. His hands may be arthritic, but as we all know, old fishermen never die, they just keep tying knots. Or something to that effect. A younger man doing the same thing would be called a "cordwright" instead.
There are two parts that make up the distinct fabric pattern commonly known as "corduroy". They are the cordmonder, which are long parallel tufts and the cordwainer, which is the channel in between any two cordmonders.
I like "Next Stop"'s idea.
Still in the textile vein, I have used a cordwainer. It is a tool used to make cording from floss, yarn, etc. You turn the handle and it winds the cord.
A cordwainer is the person on big sailing ships with lots of sails, whose job it is to ensure the ropes of the sails don't get tangled. So when the sails are coming down, the cordwainer has to coil the ropes in a certain way, so that when the sail next goes up, they go up smoothly, without any tangles or hitches.
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