MY explanation of the term ''brass nail'' for a prostitute in Scotland
seems to have set a stushie aboot the Mains indeed. Most chaps seem to
think it is rhyming slang for ''tail'', itself a quaint wee word for
''skirt'' and oft used by hard-boiled American private dick, (sic),
novelists.
My respondent of last week, Alan Mitchell of Elderslie, (and the most
famous son of which village was whom?) has taken me to task over my
dismissal of his enclosed wee dod of brass metal. He claims a brass nail
is unknown to joiners and refers instead to a brass screw. A screw is .
. . never mind. I haven't a scooby what that is myself these days.
But gloriously we seem to be near a true origin of the term, from rig
worker and an old chum, Stevie McVeigh. He offers a grand definition
altogether of the beginnings of this insult to Glasgow's houris of the
night. At one time loose ladies were permitted to go on board ships to
have their evil ways with Nelson's salty old tars.
They were wont to bed down with the mariners at the only spot on the
decks where any kind of quiet intimacy could be found. This was
underneath the gun emplacements where the decks were bolted down with
brass nails. Thus the weemenfolk were ''brass nails'' and very
uncomfortable for all it must have been. A progeny of these courtesans
of the poop deck was, incidentally, known as a ''son of a gun''. There
you are now.
GEORDIE as the generic name for a chap from Newcastle was harder to
track down. My only explanation so far is that lots of Scots in the
eighteenth century were traders in the North-east of England, and
settled down there.
During the '45 and the tragic aftermath Scots in England were held
horribly suspect so the Tyneside Scots took to claiming when down south
that they were ''for Geordie'', (meaning that shilpit descendant of the
wee German lairdie), who foiled our own bonnie prince. Thereafter such
carpet-bagging apostates were known as ''Geordies''. Can you do any
better? I doubt it.
And here's a stoatir I was asked by reader Shug Steele, who also
provided, the blackguard, the answer. Why are non-Hispanics called
''Gringos''? I knew this and surely it is too good not to be true.
During the siege of the Alamo in which Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and
John Wayne sacrificed their all against the Mexican hordes, the
Americans sang all day and night to show defiance. The song they chanted
over and over was ''Green Grow the Rushes O''. Get it? ''Green-go''. You
believe that? Even the American-Hispanic Dictionary states that the term
is ''uncertain'' a concurrence made by the Oxford.
However, an expert tells me the word derives from the Spanish
''Griego'' meaning someone who doesn't know what he is talking about.
Shug also wanted to know what pan is, as in ''knocking my pan in''. I
am pretty sure this is something to do with gold miners who worked at
their pan all day to little result. But then, why is a street beggar
known as a ''panhandler''. Is there a relationship.
BUT to readers answers. The following queries have elicited the
following answers:
Back to square one -- Back in the days before television, football
commentators would place the action on the pitch by referring by use of
a number, to the locus of the play to a grid, with corresponding
numbers, primed in the Radio Times. So ''shot the ball front square two
to square three where it was booted into square five and then it was
sent back to square four''. In no sense was square one indicative of
''back to the start''. Just another example of erroneous conclusions'',
concludes Dr E.B. Cowan of Eaglesham Road, Glasgow.
A reader of 40 years from Newlands, wants to know why the English have
''public '' schools, when they are the exact opposite. A skoosh this
one. Prior to the end of the eighteenth century and especially at the
beginning of the nineteenth, the children of the aristos were educated,
if at all, at home, i.e. privately. The rise of actual schools meant
that the boys were educated with other children, that is, publicly.
Scotland has exactly the opposite nomenclature and regards what the
English call public schools as private ones.
Moth to a candle: (as mused by myself last week). Reader Shona Blake
of Kelso writes: ''I think the best theory is that, rather than being
attracted to the light, the moth is disorientated by it. Under natural
conditions -- before we came on the scene with our artificial light
sources -- a moth would steer a straight course by keeping the moon in a
constant position in its field of view. When the ''moon'' turns out to
be a candle or lightbulb the familiar disastrous consequences ensue.''
Shona concludes by stating that the moth gets singed because it is
trying to fly in a straight line. Thank you Ms Blake. But not for your
further query -- given that the phases of the moon are due to the shadow
of the earth passing across it, how come, when the moon is gibbous and
seven-eighths full, the edge of the earth's shadow is concave?
Shona wants to know if it is an optical illusion and, if so, how it
comes about. I want to know how she thought it up.
Reader Shug from Govanhill again wants an answer as to why New York
streets have grilles with steam pouring out of them. Any answers?
Answers and enquiries to myself, care of the blatt. And a few more
questions. ''What and why is 'Beyond the Pale'? I know this but shall be
interested in all the inaccuracies which shall pour in.
Or how about this one from reader Harry Mackenzie? Why in rugby is a
try called that? After all, he has plainly succeeded. Dammit, he also
wants to know why there isn't a King Bee. There is, at least in a famous
R&B song, sung by a chap whose name I forget. Can I be answered on this
one. Oh, and still, why are the Pars so called? And why ''on
Tenterhooks''. This feature, within a week, is driving me daft.
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