Re: CHAT slavering drivel (was: NATLANG: Chinese parts of speech (or lack thereof))

--- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> >> Toad's slaver doesn't reach the snow-white
> dove.
>
> > English speakers (at least ones on this side of
> the
> > pond) almost never use "slaver".
>
> Not common in Right-Pondia either. I've come across
> it used as a verb,
> always of animals like horses or dogs, never of
> humans.
>
> > Over here it's
> > slabber, which is the stuff that runs down one's
> face
> > and drips off one's chin when one is not careful
> to
> > swallow often enough (or has just had work done at
> the
> > dentist and is still waiting for the lidocane to
> wear
> > off).
>
> Yep - otherwise known as 'slobber' or 'dribble' over
> here.
Sorry. I use a small dictionary printed in 1945. My
mother bought it at that time, when the Yankees freed
her (and others) from the darned Germans :-) I already
have a Harrap's Shorter for English-French, and as
soon as I'll have collected enough money, I'll buy the
French-English too. Donations accepted.

So this ancient dictionary gives me "slaver" both for
the noun "la bave" and the verb "baver". But, right,
it says "slobbery" for the adjective "baveux".

> >  The stuff which is expelled at high velocity
> > and might be used in an attempt to hit a bird in
> the
> > branches of a tree (but is more likely to end up
> > falling back into one's own eye) is called spit.
>
> Spot on!
A toad will unlikely spit at a bird on a tree, I dare
say.



=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


		
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