Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics
From: [s--e] at [cs.uiuc.edu] (Aamod Sane)
Subject: Sandman, Murphy, Skerry and OED
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1991 00:50:47 GMT

Here are the meanings of some unusual words from the "A game of you" series.
The source is OED.

Murphy
  - Illiterate perversion of morpheus
  1748 SMOLLETT Rod. Rand. xvi. (1760) I. 110 When Murfy sends his pup-
  pies to the heys of slipping mortals. 

Porpentine
  -   c Old name of a certain fixed star.  Obs.
  1503 Kalender of Sheph. I. vij, Wnder the syng of lybra..wnder ys
  xvii. degre so aleftys oon stern fyxyt, that oon that the sheppar [s ]
  callys pork apyk [ed. 1506 porcarpyke].
  
  - Also porcupine

Hierogram
  - Sacred symbol, hieroglyph
    
Skerry
  - A rugged insulated sea-rock or stretch of rocks, covered by the sea at 
  high water or in stormy weather; a reef, a rocky islet.

  - Also a little boat

I did not know Digitalis came from foxglove...

Foxglove
  - The popular name of Digitalis purpurea, a common ornamental flower.
    Digitalis, extracted from foxglove, can slow the heart.

Curiously, there is a word, prinado. But the meaning is irrelevant
to the Sandman usage as a name.

Prinado
  - Some kind of female sharper or impostor.

And finally:

Barbara
  - taken as a mnemonic term, for its three a's: `A' indicating a
  universal affirmative proposition. e.g all animals are mortal; 
  all men are animals; Therefore all men are mortal
  
  1880 VERN. LEE Stud. 18th C. Italy vi. 247
  Attempts to turn him into an..ordinary youth by means of teachers, col-
  leges, logical barbaras and baraliptons.


QOTD:

Rene Descartes once walked into a bar. The bartender asked him,
 "Would you care for a pint of whisky, Sir?".
 He said "I think not", and disappeared.
        -- FOAF
-- 
[s--e] at [cs.uiuc.edu]
         ==         / \  
-----    ==    *    \_/     -|||- 
         ==     


Article 33997 of rec.arts.comics:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics
Path: teetot.acusd.edu!network.ucsd.edu!usc!wupost!m.cs.uiuc.edu!sane
From: [s--e] at [cs.uiuc.edu] (Aamod Sane)
Subject: Re: Sandman, Murphy, Skerry and OED
Message-ID: <[1991 Dec 28 010539 12177] at [m.cs.uiuc.edu]>
Sender: [n--s] at [m.cs.uiuc.edu] (News Database (admin-Mike Schwager))
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
References: <[1991 Dec 28 005047 17116] at [m.cs.uiuc.edu]>
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1991 01:05:39 GMT

[s--e] at [cs.uiuc.edu] (Aamod Sane) writes:

>Here are the meanings of some unusual words from the "A game of you" series.
>The source is OED.

Oh, one more I forgot, though probably irrelevant:

Tantoblin
  - A tart or a round piece of pastry
  - A lump of excrement, a turd.
  1654 GAYTON Pleas. Notes III. ii, But our Don could not distinguish a
  Tantoblin from a Pancake.
  - also as:
    1871 COWDEN CLARKE in Gentl. Mag. Aug. 336 Horace Walpole (who, by the
    way, seems to have been a tantaddling old eaves-dropper) has recorded
    that he [Addison] died drunk with brandy.

-- 
[s--e] at [cs.uiuc.edu]
         ==         / \  
-----    ==    *    \_/     -|||- 
         ==     


[j--r--y] at [acusd.edu] (Finger or Reply for PGP Public Key)
http://nspace.cts.com/             finger or e-mail [h--p] at [nspace.cts.com]
------
"Good stories typically grow out of character, which of course is 
determined by history, i.e., continuity.  If you have to ignore 
continuity to tell a 'good' story, I'd suggest you look more closely 
at your definition of 'good story'.
                        -- Chris Jarocha-Ernst