"a long man"; "death's door shoulder blades"
Tacia
What follows is quoted from /The Citadel/ by A. J. Cronin:
---
He was a long, thin, cadaverous man with a bald head streaked with jet
black hair and drooping whiskers of the same colour. He wore a short
alpaca jacket, green with age and the stains of drugs, which showed
his bony wrists and death's door shoulder blades. His air was sad,
caustic, tired; his attitude that of the most disillusioned man in the
whole universe.
---
- I gather that "death's door" is adjectival, but what does it
possibly mean? Spooky?
- And does "long" mean "tall" in British English?
Best Wishes,
Tacia
the Omrud
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> What follows is quoted from /The Citadel/ by A. J. Cronin:
>
> ---
> He was a long, thin, cadaverous man with a bald head streaked with jet
> black hair and drooping whiskers of the same colour. He wore a short
> alpaca jacket, green with age and the stains of drugs, which showed
> his bony wrists and death's door shoulder blades. His air was sad,
> caustic, tired; his attitude that of the most disillusioned man in the
> whole universe.
> ---
>
> - I gather that "death's door" is adjectival, but what does it
> possibly mean? Spooky?
To be "at death's door" is to be very close to death. I've never seen
it used as an adjective before, but it looks as though he is so thin
that he appears to be close to dying from starvation.
> - And does "long" mean "tall" in British English?
Not normally. I think it's poetic imagery.
--
David
Cheryl
Usually "at death's door" means "dying", but in this case, referring to
shoulder blades, and following 'bony', I think it means 'skeletal'. That
is, very thin, just 'skin and bones'; not 'spooky'.
'Long' can mean 'tall', and not just in British English. I think it
often implies 'tall and thin'.
--
Cheryl
HVS
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> What follows is quoted from /The Citadel/ by A. J. Cronin:
>
> ---
> He was a long, thin, cadaverous man with a bald head streaked
> with jet black hair and drooping whiskers of the same colour. He
> wore a short alpaca jacket, green with age and the stains of
> drugs, which showed his bony wrists and death's door shoulder
> blades. His air was sad, caustic, tired; his attitude that of
> the most disillusioned man in the whole universe.
> ---
>
> - I gather that "death's door" is adjectival, but what does it
> possibly mean? Spooky?
It means that he looked like he was at death's door -- that he was
about to die -- because he was so cadaverous, emaciated, and
probably stooped that his shoulder blades were visible even through
his jacket.
> - And does "long" mean "tall" in British English?
In this context, yes.
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
R H Draney
>
>Tacia wrote:
>> ---
>> He was a long, thin, cadaverous man with a bald head streaked with jet
>> black hair and drooping whiskers of the same colour. He wore a short
>> alpaca jacket, green with age and the stains of drugs, which showed
>> his bony wrists and death's door shoulder blades. His air was sad,
>> caustic, tired; his attitude that of the most disillusioned man in the
>> whole universe.
>> ---
>>
>
>often implies 'tall and thin'.
You don't often hear of just a "long man"; it's almost always a "long, thin
man"...I picture John Carradine in "Stagecoach"....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
There was a musician with the nickname Long John Baldry. He was 2.01m
(6ft 7in) tall:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_John_Baldry
And there was the fictional Long John Silver.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Cheryl
> Cheryl filted:
>> Tacia wrote:
>>> ---
>>> He was a long, thin, cadaverous man with a bald head streaked with jet
>>> black hair and drooping whiskers of the same colour. He wore a short
>>> alpaca jacket, green with age and the stains of drugs, which showed
>>> his bony wrists and death's door shoulder blades. His air was sad,
>>> caustic, tired; his attitude that of the most disillusioned man in the
>>> whole universe.
>>> ---
>>>
>>> - And does "long" mean "tall" in British English?
>> 'Long' can mean 'tall', and not just in British English. I think it
>> often implies 'tall and thin'.
>
> You don't often hear of just a "long man"; it's almost always a "long, thin
> man"...I picture John Carradine in "Stagecoach"....r
>
>
thin cowboy.
Maybe it's largely a western US term.
--
Cheryl
Skitt
Southern, I think, and it is "a tall drink of water", usually.
--
Skitt (AmE)
Jerry Friedman
> Cheryl wrote:
> > R H Draney wrote:
> >> Cheryl filted:
> >>> Tacia wrote:
> >>>> ---
> >>>> He was a long, thin, cadaverous man with a bald head streaked with
> >>>> jet black hair and drooping whiskers of the same colour. He wore a
> >>>> short alpaca jacket, green with age and the stains of drugs, which
> >>>> showed his bony wrists and death's door shoulder blades. His air
> >>>> was sad, caustic, tired; his attitude that of the most
> >>>> disillusioned man in the whole universe.
> >>>> ---
>
> >>>> - And does "long" mean "tall" in British English?
> >>> 'Long' can mean 'tall', and not just in British English. I think it
> >>> often implies 'tall and thin'.
>
> >> You don't often hear of just a "long man"; it's almost always a
> >> "long, thin man"...I picture John Carradine in "Stagecoach"....r
Google Books results:
"a long, thin man": 629
"a long man": 659
However, a lot of the hits on "a long man" had other meanings. The
first said that in Jamaica, "He is a long man" means "he will carry an
argument to extremes." (Cassidy and Le Page, /A dictionary of
Jamaican English/.)
A lot of the hits on both are from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Then there's this odd one: "One was a tall or rather a long man ;
oldish, lean, seedy, solemn, with a hollow
chest, a long lean face, and an unwholesome dusky unclean
complexion." I don't know what distinction he's making.
Edward Everett Hale, /Scrope; or, the Lost Library/
http://books.google.com/books?id=-7ERAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA523#v=onepage&q=&f=false
> > "A long drink of water" always sounds like it should refer to a tall
> > thin cowboy.
>
> > Maybe it's largely a western US term.
>
> Southern, I think,
DARE says "chiefly Northern". We need somebody to say "eastern" to
complete the set.
> and it is "a tall drink of water", usually.
Google Books results:
"She's a tall drink of water": 5
"She is a tall drink of water": 1
"She's a long drink of water": 7 (one of which is from a DARE example
from Maine that says "a long drink of water" there usually refers to
females--to my surprise)
"She is a long drink of water": 0
"He's a tall drink of water": 21
"He is a tall drink of water" 2
"He's a long drink of water": 14 (including this line of dialogue from
a western, /Cinnabar/ by Lee Roddy: "He's a long drink of water, but
broad shouldered and muscular." That surprises me: I expect the
phrase to mean someone thin.")
"He is a long drink of water": 3
So "tall" wins, as you said, but not by much. The "tall" version
seems pointless to me--first you compare a tall person to a long
drink, and then you use "tall" instead of "long" for the drink,
getting you back where you started. It's like saying, "My dog is sick
as a dog," or in an example from /Mad/ magazine in my childhood,
"Cadillac: the Rolls-Royce of cars".
--
Jerry Friedman
Wood Avens
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Google Books results:
>"a long, thin man": 629
>"a long man": 659
>
And then there's the Long Man:
http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:3gZYz712JbQJ:www.sussexpast.co.uk/longman/+long+man&cd=2&hl=xx-elmer&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a
or
http://tinyurl.com/yctt2a7
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
Mike Lyle
> On Wed, 6 Jan 2010 14:07:42 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Google Books results:
>> "a long, thin man": 629
>> "a long man": 659
>>
>
> And then there's the Long Man:
>
> http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:3gZYz712JbQJ:www.sussexpast.co.uk/longman/+long+man&cd=2&hl=xx-elmer&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a
> or
> http://tinyurl.com/yctt2a7
NTBCW the Cerne Abbas Geaunte:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_giant>,
who is also thought to be a 17-C fake. If so, he must have represented
one in the eye ("in the _eye_?") for the Puritans.
--
Mike.
the Omrud
> R H Draney wrote:
>
>> thin man"...I picture John Carradine in "Stagecoach"....r
>
> "A long drink of water" always sounds like it should refer to a tall
> thin cowboy.
>
> Maybe it's largely a western US term.
I have only once encountered "A long drink of cold water" (sic),
referring to a tall thin man. It's the title of a book of memoirs by
Patrick Campbell (Patrick Gordon Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy), an Irish
humorist known to UK audiences as a panel member on "Call My Bluff"
about 30 years ago.
Dad had a considerable collection of humorous writing; this book was on
a bookshelf when I was small, so of course I read it. I read everything
on the bookshelves.
--
David
tony cooper
<usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>On 06/01/2010 18:44, Cheryl wrote:
>> R H Draney wrote:
>>
>>> You don't often hear of just a "long man"; it's almost always a "long,
>>> thin man"...I picture John Carradine in "Stagecoach"....r
>>
>> "A long drink of water" always sounds like it should refer to a tall
>> thin cowboy.
>>
>> Maybe it's largely a western US term.
>
>I have only once encountered "A long drink of cold water" (sic),
>referring to a tall thin man.
I'm more familiar with "a long drink of water" to describe a tall,
thin man.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Skitt
My Google results were roughly 2 million to 1 million for "tall drink of
water" vs. "long drink of water".
--
Skitt (AmE)
Redshade
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> What follows is quoted from /The Citadel/ by A. J. Cronin:
>
> ---
> He was a long, thin, cadaverous man with a bald head streaked with jet
> black hair and drooping whiskers of the same colour. He wore a short
> alpaca jacket, green with age and the stains of drugs, which showed
> his bony wrists and death's door shoulder blades. His air was sad,
> caustic, tired; his attitude that of the most disillusioned man in the
> whole universe.
> ---
>
>
>
>
> Best Wishes,
> Tacia
I don't think that anyone in the UK would use this phrase at all
unless they were refering to the song "Long Tall Sally" popularised in
the UK by Little Richard.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>NTBCW the Cerne Abbas Geaunte:
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_giant>,
>who is also thought to be a 17-C fake. If so, he must have represented
>one in the eye ("in the _eye_?") for the Puritans.
"Be careful where you point that!"
Evan Kirshenbaum
That's certainly the my family described me when I was growing up.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |All tax revenue is the result of
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |holding a gun to somebody's head.
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |Not paying taxes is against the law.
|If you don't pay your taxes, you'll
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |be fined. If you don't pay the fine,
(650)857-7572 |you'll be jailed. If you try to
|escape from jail, you'll be shot.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | P.J. O'Rourke
CDB
>
[long tall sallies]
>
> "He's a long drink of water": 14 (including this line of dialogue
> from a western, /Cinnabar/ by Lee Roddy: "He's a long drink of
> water, but broad shouldered and muscular." That surprises me: I
> expect the phrase to mean someone thin.")
>
muscular, and kind of T-shaped.
[...]
Ian Noble
wrote:
Tall and of a thin build. It used to. Not so much nowadays.
One of Jack the Ripper's possible victims, Elisabeth Stride, was known
as "Long Liz". She was 5ft 5ins (165cm); tall for the time and place
(1888, Spitalfields in London - then, one of the worst of London's
inner-city slums), and her face at least was long and thin, if her
mortuary photograph is anything to go by
(http://www.casebook.org/victims/stride.html).
Cheers - Ian
(BrE: Yorks., Hants.)
Ian Noble
Or, colloquially, "a long streak of piss" ("a gangling youth").
Robin Bignall
That's typical Nottinghamese.
--
Robin
(BrE)
Herts, England
Frank ess
My father would sometimes describe a tall man as "A long drink of
water" ("If he fell down, he'd be halfway home!" More believeable in a
baseball frame of reference.).
--
Frank ess