Re: CHAT: Japanese English (was Re: Correction, I hope, of M/C URL)

On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Barry Garcia wrote:

> CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> >A scythe? What a beautiful word! It's pronounced /sait/? /saiT/?
>
> Hmm i think it would be /saiD/.
Yes. The way I pronounce it the /ai/ is longish, but that's probably
because of the /D/ being voiced.

> I´m not too sure if it really is a scythe
> because I think a scythe is short handled, and the grim reaper (death)
> carries around something similar with a long handle (which i thought had a
> different name, but I may be correct).
The scythe is the thing with the long handle that Death carries; the
short-handled crescent-shaped knife is a sickle. Mowing with a sickle
is impractical; it's mostly used for cutting things that you can grab
with your other hand, while the scythe is used for mowing, for
instance, grass or grain. It's very difficult and dangerous - I can
understand why most people prefer to wear wooden shoes when using a
scythe :-)

   Irina

--
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