Made up out of whole cloth
Peter van der Linden
* the whole nine yards
* in like Flynn
* Nova
* sniping like a bald giraffe
* bite the wax tadpole
* pigtails & pony tails,
and sundry other phrases, I would like to enquire why we say
something completely invented is "made out of whole cloth".
After all, something wholly constructed from cloth is actually
quite substantial. Is this perhaps another of those mis-hearings,
like "an old wise tale" for "old wives' tale"? Does the saying
actually mean "hole" cloth or netting?
ObUL: After decades of buying only Daimlers, the Queen finally now owns
her first Rolls-Royce.
--
----------------
Peter van der Linden lin...@eng.sun.com 415 336-6206
One of the few people never to have been offered the crown of Albania.
lrud...@vax.clarku.edu
>and sundry other phrases, I would like to enquire why we say
>something completely invented is "made out of whole cloth".
>
>After all, something wholly constructed from cloth is actually
>quite substantial. Is this perhaps another of those mis-hearings,
>like "an old wise tale" for "old wives' tale"? Does the saying
>actually mean "hole" cloth or netting?
Though the risk of cutting off this thread prematurely looms large,
I'll take it: Peter, you're close with your `netting' idea, but got
there by quite the wrong root--"whole cloth" is in error for "whale
cloth", a large-mesh net used by Norwegians (and others) to capture
smaller (but still quite substantial) cetaceans.
Lee "can kill nine at one blow" Rudolph
Rich Brown Cray Operations
>In a previous article, lin...@positive.Eng.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden) wrote:
>>and sundry other phrases, I would like to enquire why we say
>>something completely invented is "made out of whole cloth".
Is Peter really inquiring, or just trolling?
>Though the risk of cutting off this thread prematurely looms large,
>I'll take it: Peter, you're close with your `netting' idea, but got
>there by quite the wrong root--"whole cloth" is in error for "whale
>cloth", a large-mesh net used by Norwegians (and others) to capture
>smaller (but still quite substantial) cetaceans.
References? Or is Lee just trolling?
The Oxford English dictionary doesn't mention this etymology. The phrase
itself appears to have been used in a _literal_ sense as early as 1433.
As for the figurative meaning, the OED seems to imply that when one makes
something from "whole cloth", as opposed to available fragments of cloth,
then one is free to make it up as one goes along:
whole cloth. A piece of cloth of the full size as manufactured, as
distinguished from a piece that may be cut off or out of it for a garment,
etc.
1433 Rolls of Parlt. IV. 451/2 Hole Clothes, called brode Clothes. 1525 Wydow
Edyth in Hazl. Shaks. Jest-bks. (1864) 58 Might I be so bolde as of your hole
cloth To desire you for to deliuer vnto me As much as wyll suffyse..To make a
large Gowne and a Kyrtell. 1724 Act 11 Geo. I c. 24 Sect.1 Every Woollen Broad
Cloth,..whether..called an End or Half Cloth, or a Long or Whole Cloth.
b fig. or in fig. context, esp. in phr. cut (etc.) out of (the) whole cloth,
used in various senses; now esp. (U.S. colloq. or slang) of a statement wholly
fabricated or false.
1579 G. HARVEY Letter-bk. (Camden) 77, I shalbe contente..to lende you the
choyce of as many gentle wordes and loovelye termes as we..use to deliver ower
thankes in. Choose whether you will have them given or yeeldid,..kutt owte of
the whole cloathe, or otherwise powrid owte. 1594 NASHE Christ's T. 46 Two or
three thousand pound... When hee hath it all in his handes, for a month or two
he reuels it, and cuts it out in the whole cloth. 1630 BRATHWAIT Eng. Gent.
333 They cut it out of the whole cloth, and divide their acres peece-meale
into shreds. 1634 PEACHAM Compl. Gentl. i. (1906) 5 The valiant
Souldier..measureth out of the whole cloath his Honour with his sword. 1639
FULLER Holy War IV. vi. 177 This rent (not in the seam but whole cloth)
betwixt these Churches. 1677 HUBBARD Pres. St. New-Eng. II. 1 The List or
Border here being known to be more worth then the whole Cloth; That whole
Tract of Land, being of little worth, unless it were for the Borders thereof
upon the Sea-coast. 1843 C. MATHEWS Writ. 68 (Thornton) Isn't this entire
story..made out of whole cloth? 1897 Fortn. Rev. July 140 Absolutely
untruthful telegrams were manufactured out of `whole cloth'. 1905 VACHELL Hill
xii, That Eton captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there.
Peter van der Linden
Rich Brown kindly types in what the big dic says of "whole cloth".
The problem is that almost all the references are using the phrase in
a literal sense. The first one that uses it to mean "complete invention"
appears to be:
> 1843 C. MATHEWS Writ. 68 (Thornton) Isn't this entire
> story..made out of whole cloth?
But a later example (significantly, from the UK) uses the phrase in a way
that clearly indicates a different meaning, that of "made of superior stuff"
> 1905 VACHELL Hill xii,
> That Eton captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there.
I'm guessing that in the US "made out of whole cloth" first meant "created out of
raw materials", and has now come to mean "created out of nothing".
I find it confusing. But I could care less (<-- newbie bait).
--
Peter van der Linden lin...@eng.sun.com 415 336-6206
An insect was heard to complain / that scientists had poisoned his brain
the cause of his sorrow / was / DDT.
Peter D. Hampe
>Rich Brown kindly types in what the big dic says of "whole cloth".
>The problem is that almost all the references are using the phrase in
>a literal sense. The first one that uses it to mean "complete invention"
>appears to be:
>> 1843 C. MATHEWS Writ. 68 (Thornton) Isn't this entire
>> story..made out of whole cloth?
>But a later example (significantly, from the UK) uses the phrase in a way
>that clearly indicates a different meaning, that of "made of superior stuff"
>> 1905 VACHELL Hill xii,
>> That Eton captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there.
>I'm guessing that in the US "made out of whole cloth" first meant "created out of
>raw materials", and has now come to mean "created out of nothing".
>I find it confusing. But I could care less (<-- newbie bait).
There is a nut shell it is: once upon a time one created fancy
garments from "whole" cloth - from the bolt with out haveing to
adjust the layout to fit the avaiable material. Nowadays when
one is 'making it up out of whole cloth' one uses a metaphor
implying that the person spoken about it making it up as they
go, with out regard to wastage, appness, or reality check.
chus
pyotr
p.s. it also has implications of starting from scratch, without
having to figure out how to make avaialble pieces fit. Just
start cutting.
--
py...@halcyon.com Pyotr Filipivich, sometimes Owl.
"I put my Pet Rock through my Windows" - Jesse Mitchells
Jorn Barger
In 1517, a Spanish expedition brought back to Europe a few small samples of
orange ore, retrieved from an extremely remote volcanic island in the South
Pacific, an island locally known as Holua-- Isle of the Hungry Ghosts.
Again in 1557 and 1581, Europeans visited the island and brought back
samples, some of which were acquired by John Dee, a socially prominent
*alchemist* in Elizabethan London. Something about the ore caught Dee's
interest, for in 1601 he personally financed an expedition to set up an
experimental smelting furnace on Holua. The expedition sent back word that
they had begun production of metal ingots... and then were heard from no
more.
No trace of Holua has been found by any subsequent explorer. The general
assumption has been it must have erupted violently during the Dee
expedition's period of habitancy, subsiding entirely below the ocean
surface. Modern seafloor mapping has pinpointed a most-probable underseas
peak, 200 feet below sealevel.
Today an expedition is being mounted to collect samples of the seafloor
around this presumptive "Holua", after a British researcher cataloguing
Dee's alchemical stores, in the basement of the British Museum, found that
that orange ore assayed at 8% Uranium 235. He has ventured the hypothesis
that Dee's men may, unknowingly, have refined enough fissionable material
on Holua to unleash the world's first human-initiated nuclear tragedy. A
plausible reconstruction of the smelting technology available to Dee,
taking account of ingot size, purity and placement, suggests that adding a
sixth eight-pound ingot to a pile of five, stacked in a conventional way,
could have triggered a blast one-quarter as powerful as that at Hiroshima,
more than sufficient to vaporize the island.
bill nelson
:
: Today an expedition is being mounted to collect samples of the seafloor
: Dee's alchemical stores, in the basement of the British Museum, found that
: that orange ore assayed at 8% Uranium 235. He has ventured the hypothesis
: that Dee's men may, unknowingly, have refined enough fissionable material
: on Holua to unleash the world's first human-initiated nuclear tragedy. A
: plausible reconstruction of the smelting technology available to Dee,
: taking account of ingot size, purity and placement, suggests that adding a
: sixth eight-pound ingot to a pile of five, stacked in a conventional way,
: could have triggered a blast one-quarter as powerful as that at Hiroshima,
: more than sufficient to vaporize the island.
This sounds highly unlikely. In the first place, for naturally occurring
uranium ore - U235 is only 0.7% of the total. The rest is unfisionable
U238, with a trace of U234. Moreover, it would have been impossible for
them to separate the isotopes, with the chemical/physical knowledge of the
time. Smelting would not do it.
I am afraid that this is another UL, or an attempt at creating one.
Bill "Now, the Lemurians ..." Nelson
Phil Gustafson
>~From the science column of Sunday's NYT:
>
>In 1517, a Spanish expedition brought back to Europe a few small samples of
>orange ore, retrieved from an extremely remote volcanic island in the South
>Pacific, an island locally known as Holua-- Isle of the Hungry Ghosts.
[Island disappeared, is now seamount]
>Today an expedition is being mounted to collect samples of the seafloor
>around this presumptive "Holua", after a British researcher cataloguing
>Dee's alchemical stores, in the basement of the British Museum, found that
>that orange ore assayed at 8% Uranium 235. He has ventured the hypothesis
>that Dee's men may, unknowingly, have refined enough fissionable material
>on Holua to unleash the world's first human-initiated nuclear tragedy. A
>plausible reconstruction of the smelting technology available to Dee,
>taking account of ingot size, purity and placement, suggests that adding a
>sixth eight-pound ingot to a pile of five, stacked in a conventional way,
>could have triggered a blast one-quarter as powerful as that at Hiroshima,
>more than sufficient to vaporize the island.
As Bill points out, naturally-occuring Uranium comes with about 0.7%
U-235, and that concentration has seemed pretty constant so far.
8% U-235, though, might possibly be formed into a critical mass: it's
weaker than "weapons-grade" uranium, but more concentrated than the usual
commercial reactor fuel.
The problem is that it's not possible to get a nuclear explosion
by just shoving fissionable material together by hand: the material must
be forced together very rapidly and held together for a few microseconds
to get a bang rather than a blob or a fizzle. The usual way to do this
is with an "explosive lens": a carefully designed sphere of fast-burning
and slow-burning explosives that squashes an inner fissle sphere with
great force and predictability. Do check out John McPhee's _Curve of
Binding Energy_ if you have further interest. You might also read
sci.military for a while or, to find the best pictures I've seen,
dig out a recent _Popular Mechanics_ article about the current bomb-
dismantling effort.
Another possibility is that the less environmentally aware
dinosaurs had their way, their reactor went kablooey, and we descended
from some combination of mammals and cockroaches. The remains of the
reactor formed the mysterious island in question. You might check out
Harry Harrison's _West of Eden_ trilogy for an even less likely hypothesis.
ObUL:
Current SUN headline: NOAH'S REMAINS FOUND! 9000-YEAR-OLD CORPSE
FOUND IN CAVE (Photo of dead, but preserved, old guy in beard. Like
Nolan Hinshaw in an aba.)
Currennt WWN headline: HILLARY ADOPTS ALIEN BABY! (Photo of Ms. Clinton
holding infant with big head and matte marks.)
True AFUer's, of course, know that one of these headlines is obviously false,
by 3000 years or so. So the other one must be true.
Phil "A pox on dimbulb middle names" Gustafson
--
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