* Posts by Zen 1

4 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2010

Nippy, palaver and cockwomble: Greatest words in English?

Zen 1

Peradventure

A wonderful but neglected word, albeit simply an archaic way of saying perhaps.

JJ Abrams and Star Wars: I've got a bad feeling about this

Zen 1
Pirate

Re: "... with which one would buckle."

One does not buckle with a buckler. The word is an onomatopoeic derivation of the Old French word bocler, so the -er suffix is not indicative of an agent noun in this case. None of the verb usages of buckle make sense in this context - we may therefore infer that swash serves as the verb in this phrase.

Zen 1
Pirate

Re: "swashing a buckle"

Actually, one swashes a buckler; "To swash" means to strike with a heavy blow (e.g. "Gregory, remember thy swashing blow" from Romeo and Juliet act 1, scene 1) and a buckler is a small hand-held shield.

Bletchley Park archives to be digitised, put online

Zen 1
Thumb Up

+1

That would be Tony Sale, who is the principal individual behind the Colossus rebuild project. He is an incredibly knowledgable and entertaining fellow.