Conference thebay::joyoflex

    The words `Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way'
    occured in The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd). I don't know
    if the expression is original there, but I've heard it quoted
    in one form or another several times since I first heard the song.
    Maybe this is the source for the `lives of ...' variant.
    
    b
    

    something like
    
    "The vast majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation"
    
    Walt Whitman, I think?  Last time I heard it, it was quoted by Jack
    Keating (Robin Williams' character) in the movie "The Dead Poets'
    Society" (awesome movie) in the scene when they're all climbing
    up on his desk to get a different view.
    
    -Jody
    

    The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
    
    	-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), _Walden_ (1854) _Economy_

        Thanks.
        
        Dan

    Sorry about the red herring (.1). I looked this quotation up last night,
    and all I can add to .3 is that Thoreau wrote it quite early on in
    _Economy_, probably somewhere in the first 2/3 pages.
    
    b

    It is truly shocking that employees of the Great Digital Equipment
    Corporation, with its Maynard, Massachusetts headquarters located just
    15 minutes from WALDEN POND, site of Thoreau's escape into himself and
    subsquent books logging the above-mentioned SOJOURN leading to the
    QUOTE mentioned in TOPIC 700, should be so uninformed. 
    
    No excuses even if you work outside the Greater Maynard area! 
    
    (Yes, I know that it is also indeed shocking that run-on sentences such
    as the above can be tolerated in Notes)

    We're very tolerant people around here.  It's probably a result of
    the same chemicals that cause us to be so prone to burned-out
    puns.
    
    Did you know that while he was living at Walden Pond, Henry David
    regularly took his laundry home to his mother to be washed?  (I
    always knew all those lit classes would come in handy someday!)
    
    --bonnie 

    So what does HQ's proximity to a historic site have to do with the
    reading habits of individuals, I ask you?  (I thought Thoreau was
    too boring to bother with!)
    
    Sherry :^)

Hiya,

Anyone know the origins of "vergers"?  I have a vague idea of what it entails,
but it's a funny word.  Do they "verge" or "vergerate"?


Chele

    Well, "verger" is French for "orchard", but I suspect that's not what
    you want!!    :-)
    
    Concise Oxford Dictionary: 
    1. An official in a church who acts as a caretaker  and attendant.
    2. An officer who bears the staff before a bishop etc.
                             [ME f. AF (as VERGE (1))]
    
    Verge:
    1. An edge or border
    2. An extreme limit
    3. A grass edging of a road
    4. An edge of tiles projecting over a gable
    5. A wand or rod carried before a bishop, dean, etc., as an emblem of
    office.
    
    
    So a verger is someone who cuts the grass !!!           :-)
    
    Dave
    

    I've never heard the word vergers before -- must be 'Strine.
    
    Could you use it in a sentence, to give some context?
    
    					andrew

The -2 reference is the one that is appropriate.  It's "an Anglican thing" :^)
not an Australian thing. 
The grass cutting bit is interesting though.

>    Concise Oxford Dictionary:
>    1. An official in a church who acts as a caretaker  and attendant.


Thankyou,

Chele

    Has the church been known to sacrifice verges?

re  <<< Note 700.13 

    A clock can have a "verge escapement", whatever that is.
    
    I find it interesting that both Oz and US (presumably) should not know
    what a verger is. While it's not a common word (unless you're an
    Anglican churchgoer) I'd have thought it would have been reasonably
    well known.
    
    BTW the grass-cutting thing was a red herring. The sexton cuts the
    grass!
    

    Re .15.  A verge escapement is the old vertical type.
    
                        D
                        |
                  X-----+-----X
                        |
                  +-+   |	A and B are wheels, fixed together, on
                  | |= H|	axle C.  On the face of wheel A, at the
                +-|A|   |	periphery, are teeth.  D is a vertical
                |B| |   |	shaft with cross shaft X-X, where X and X
            C---+ | +-  |	are weights.  H and H are paddles fixed to
                | | |   |	shaft D such that they engage the teeth on
                +-| |   |	wheel A at top and bottom.  The wheels are
                  | |= H|	driven to rotate by a weighted rope passed
                  +-+   |	over wheel B as a pulley.  As wheel A ro-
                        |	tates, its teeth push alternately on one
    				or the other paddle H, rotating shaft D
    first one way and then the other as teeth engage/disengage.  The mass
    of weights X, and the energy required to move them back and forth, are
    a moderately accurate regulatory mechanism - slow the clock by adding
    weight at X or reducing the weight driving the wheels.
    
    -dick

    OK, I've dug out my NSOED and found the following:
    
    'verge' - see also 'virge' from the Latin virga = rod
    Noun with meanings that include the penis; the wand carried in front of
    a Bishop; the spindle or arbor of an escapment, esp. in a verge
    escapement; the edge of something; an area extending to a distance of
    12 miles from the royal court, under the jurisdiction of the Lord High
    Steward
    
    Verb meaning to skirt round.
    
    To act as a verger
    
    Verger from the Latin virgarius which is like virga - an official who
    carries a rod or similar symbol of office in front of a bishop or dean. 
    An official in a church who acts as a caretaker and attendant.
    
    
    Nick

re a few back

It was more the origins of the word than the job description I was interested 
in. I've _seen_ the job description already :^) and it seems to include part 
of the tasks normally assigned to a sexton, but not a Sexton Blake, which is
probably appropriate.


Chele

BTW 
I guess a Joe Blake is the secular equivalent of a Sexton Blake

    G'day,
     'Chele... naughty... Joe Blake is rhyming slang for a snake... of
    the viperous kind or similar....
    
    Sexton Blake was a private dick, as I vaguely recall..
    
    
    derek
    

Derek,

You mean you didn't like the idea of a verging viper?

Chele

    Hi,
    
    Is that one that has not yet bitten anyone?
    
    derek

    "Virgule" is French for "comma" (the punctuation mark, not the
    butterfly); it's from the Latin "virgula", diminutive of "virga", a
    rod.
    Our "find some salacious connection in anything" department wonders if
    there's any connection between a rod (virga) and a virgin (virgo).
    
    Dave_in_British_summer_time_(i.e._sleet)

    OK, you knowledgeable lot ! What is PERSIPAN ?
    
    It's listed as one of the ingredients of some little cakes I've got.
    Judging by the look and taste it's actually something like marzipan.
    (The list of ingredients is in English, BTW)
    
    Dave
    ====

    Persis - a dry, powder form of archil.
    
    Archil - a violet dye make from lichens.
    
    I therefore think it's a coloring agent, not a flavoring agent.
    
    							Ann

    But it's the fourth ingredient (I think) in terms of quantity ! I
    really don't think it's a colouring agent...
    
    How about "parsley bread" ?  (persil-pain) 

    >But it's the fourth ingredient (I think) in terms of quantity ! I
    >really don't think it's a colouring agent...
    
    You don't necessarily need a lot of a coloring agent to get an
    impressive effect (saffron comes immediately to mind).
    
    					andrew

    That's what I meant ! It's the 4th most abundant ingredient ! It surely
    can't be a colour...

    Oh!  
    
    Right!  
    
    (DUH!)

    Hi,
    
     persil = a washing powder....
    
    any relevance?
    
    Marzipan is an almond paste... perhaps persipan is a paste of other
    origins  likehazel nuts or persimmons ?
    
    derek

    Persimmons seems possible...
    
    The label actually says:
    
    Ingredients: Sugar, chocolate, persipan, glucose syrup,
    honey  sorbital, gelling agent, pectin, acidity regulator:
    sodium citrate, spices, raising agent: ammonium
    bicarbonate, potassium carbonate, acidulant;
    citric acid
    
    
    exactly as above, with a double space and no comma after "honey", and a
    semicolon after "acidulant".
    
    In spite of (or because of) the ingredients they taste very nice !
    
    They'te "Dist by Huric Foods" which sounds a but Balkan or Hungarian;
    perhaps persipan means something in Serbo-Croat !
    

    It is some type of flour?  The ingredients list doesn't include
    flour of any sort, yet it has raising agents, which would work
    on flour.
    
    					andrew

    Mais revenons  � ces moutons (months later):
    
    �Verger from the Latin virgarius which is like virga - an official who
    �carries a rod or similar symbol of office in front of a bishop or dean. 
    That's interesting. There's a parliamentary official called Black Rod,
    named (not surprisingly) after the stick he carries.
    
    b