Re: Words of the day: "box" and "bolt"

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> Once again, you're proving to me that you speak a very archaic form of
> French. I never heard "tailler une plume" for whatever meaning you're
> saying. *Nobody* refers to a pen as a "plume" except in poetry and in the
> set phrase "nom de plume": "pseudonym".
Legman (who wrote the book in 1969, I think) glosses the phrase as "trimming a
quill".  What word is used in France today for a quill pen?

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals;
more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more
leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of
the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.  --Samuel Gompers

Reply