Sixty Grit gave us a nice striking photo of chair in his last post:
That's a mighty fine piece of Möbel.* Of course I was immediately reminded of something tangential (not tangenital you preverts).
Our "at sign" -- @ -- which has become ubiquitous, sorta kinda looks like that chairback. That jiggered my memory of something Swiss -- namely their name for @ which is Affenschwanz. Perhaps the Dutch cognate will be more revealing: apenstaartje. Well, maybe not. "Monkey tail" is what I'm getting at.
Here's a comprehensive list of how other languages name @. link The Italians call it a chiocciola ("snail"). Curiously (and sadly), internet usage seems to be driving the universal adoption of the boring English term "at sign."
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*Möbel means furniture in German. Property is called Immoblien. You can see our words mobile and immobile in there. It makes perfect sense in German-logic sort of way: Furniture is mobile; property is not. A furnished apartment is said to be möbliert. Kuhl, huh?
6 comments:
I hope Dickin' Bimbos Monkey Tail Home shows.
Actually, I like affenschwanz better.
I always liked Calder's work. He invented the Möbel.
And I know you like The Who's (Whose?) Goin' Möbel.
I, however, try to avoid being stuck inside of Möbel with the Meafus bluz agin.
All this time I thought it was shorthand for "at"
Rabel wrote in the previous thread: "...don't lean back in the monkey chair."
Ditto, dammit, ditto. Isn't that a chairmaker's first job, to make the damn thing sittable?!
We bought a chair for our 2 year old granddaughter to sit @ the coffee table and color. The first time she sat in it she fell backwards immediately. Went and got a proper one.
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