Celine: strainer and a sieve
Marius Hancu
Any difference between a "strainer" and a "sieve?"
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strainer
1 : a : a utensil or device (as a screen, sieve, or filter) to retain
or hold back solid pieces or particles while a liquid passes through
--
M-W U
----
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[Pacifist talk during the war]
"I ask you, Comrade, is it my family that is going to serve as a
strainer and a sieve to a mixture of French and German bullets?"
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night, p. 64
Tr. by John H.P. Marks
---
--
Thanks.
Marius Hancu
Don Phillipson
news:8aa8c4b9-ee43-4319...@z3g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
> [Pacifist talk during the war]
>
> "I ask you, Comrade, is it my family that is going to serve as a
> strainer and a sieve to a mixture of French and German bullets?"
>
> Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night, p. 64
> Tr. by John H.P. Marks
In the modern kitchen (and probably in France in Celine's lifetime)
a strainer holds solid materials (e.g. spaghetti) while letting liquid
(e.g. water or gravy) drain through it, and a sifter has much finer
mesh, typically used to remove lumps from flour by pushing it
through the mesh. Seive commonly means a garden tool. All mean
(informally) "full of holes," as in English we might say a rifle target
became a colander. We do not know what French nouns
Celine used.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
There is considerable overlap between the uses of the words "strainer"
and "sieve".
I would tend to use "strainer" to mean something to separate solids from
a liquid and "sieve" to mean something "used to separate the coarser
from the finer particles of any loose material" (OED). However the OED
adds "or as a strainer for liquids".
Searches at Amazon.com for "strainer" finds some of the same items as
are found by a search for "sieve", and vice versa.
I think the use of both words in "to serve as a strainer and a sieve"
simply adds emphasis by covering more possibilities than might one of
the words on its own.
The speaker could have gone further by saying "to serve as a strainer,
sieve and riddle".
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Marius Hancu
> > [Pacifist talk during the war]
>
> > "I ask you, Comrade, is it my family that is going to serve as a
> > strainer and a sieve to a mixture of French and German bullets?"
>
> In the modern kitchen (and probably in France in Celine's lifetime)
> a strainer holds solid materials (e.g. spaghetti) while letting liquid
> (e.g. water or gravy) drain through it, and a sifter has much finer
> mesh, typically used to remove lumps from flour by pushing it
> through the mesh. Seive commonly means a garden tool. All mean
> (informally) "full of holes," as in English we might say a rifle target
> became a colander. We do not know what French nouns
> Celine used.
Thanks for the separation.
Marius Hancu
the Omrud
> "Marius Hancu"<marius...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:8aa8c4b9-ee43-4319...@z3g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
>
>> [Pacifist talk during the war]
>>
>> "I ask you, Comrade, is it my family that is going to serve as a
>> strainer and a sieve to a mixture of French and German bullets?"
>>
>> Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night, p. 64
>> Tr. by John H.P. Marks
>
> In the modern kitchen (and probably in France in Celine's lifetime)
> a strainer holds solid materials (e.g. spaghetti) while letting liquid
> (e.g. water or gravy) drain through it, and a sifter has much finer
> mesh, typically used to remove lumps from flour by pushing it
> through the mesh. Seive commonly means a garden tool.
In BrE, "sieve" is the normal term for a kitchen implement used to hold
back solids while allowing water to escape. We don't normally say
"sifter". "Strainer" is normally only used in "tea strainer".
--
David
Wood Avens
Well, up to a point. Let's also hear it for "colander". In our
household this is made of a solid material with holes in it, whereas a
sieve is a mesh. I have (or had: I dunno where it is now) a sifter
for icing sugar, and if pressed to name them I'd also use the term for
those canisters with holes on top from which one scatters chocolate
powder on to one's cappuccino. Like a salt-cellar but bigger.
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
James Hogg
To add yet another word, I remember people using riddles in my childhood.
--
James
James Silverton
I remember from my adolescence the use of "riddles" in construction and
gardening to remove larger rocks. They were usually a circular frame
holding an appropriately coarse steel mesh. I haven't come across the
word in a long time.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Leslie Danks
In some contexts the word is "screen":
<http://www.ez-screen.com/interior.cfm?pid=ez%201000xl>
(Designed for the larger kitchen.)
--
Les (BrE)
Mark Brader
> In the modern kitchen (and probably in France in Celine's lifetime)
> a strainer holds solid materials (e.g. spaghetti) while letting liquid
> (e.g. water or gravy) drain through it,
I agree, but I'd say that "sieve" is a synonym for it. This device is
made of a grid of fine wires held in a frame with a handle, like a
miniature of a tennis racket except that usually it isn't flat and
is all metal.
> and a sifter has much finer mesh, typically used to remove lumps from
> flour by pushing it through the mesh.
The device I know as a sifter includes a mechanism with moving parts
to help induce the flour to go through, gravity being insufficient.
> Seive commonly means a garden tool.
Never heard of such a thing.
> All mean (informally) "full of holes," as in English we might say a
> rifle target became a colander.
I'd say a colander features sheet metal with holes formed into it,
rather than a grid of wires. It works on a larger scale than a
strainer (sieve).
"Sieve" and "colander" are used informally to mean something full of
holes, but I don't think "strainer" is.
By the way, sieve is pronounced "siv", with a short I.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | In the affairs of this world men are saved,
m...@vex.net | not by faith, but by the want of it. --Franklin
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
>Don Phillipson:
>> In the modern kitchen (and probably in France in Celine's lifetime)
>> a strainer holds solid materials (e.g. spaghetti) while letting liquid
>> (e.g. water or gravy) drain through it,
>
>I agree, but I'd say that "sieve" is a synonym for it. This device is
>made of a grid of fine wires held in a frame with a handle, like a
>miniature of a tennis racket except that usually it isn't flat and
>is all metal.
>
>> and a sifter has much finer mesh, typically used to remove lumps from
>> flour by pushing it through the mesh.
>
>The device I know as a sifter includes a mechanism with moving parts
>to help induce the flour to go through, gravity being insufficient.
>
>> Seive commonly means a garden tool.
>
>Never heard of such a thing.
>
>> All mean (informally) "full of holes," as in English we might say a
>> rifle target became a colander.
>
>I'd say a colander features sheet metal with holes formed into it,
>rather than a grid of wires. It works on a larger scale than a
>strainer (sieve).
>
>"Sieve" and "colander" are used informally to mean something full of
>holes, but I don't think "strainer" is.
>
>By the way, sieve is pronounced "siv", with a short I.
Back in the 1950s my Mum had a colander (perforated metal) for draining
vegetables. She had a sieve (wire mesh) that could be used for the same
purpose or for sieving flour. The flour was "encouraged" through the
wire mesh with a wooden spoon. She had a small strainer (wire mesh) that
was used for pouring tea through on its way from the teapot to a cup.
Dad had a riddle in the garden. The ground was very stony. He spent a
lot of his gardening time removing stones from the soil.
These images show items similar to what we had back then:
Colander:
http://properblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/273t70245_colander_with_tube_handles.jpg
Sieve:
http://www.faqs.org/photo-dict/photofiles/list/2821/3747sieve.jpg
Tea Strainer:
http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00fCMaswzdntuB/18-8-Stainles-Steel-Tea-Strainer.jpg
Riddle:
http://www.diytools.co.uk/diy/Images/DB_Detail/_49225__53068__.jpg
Glenn Knickerbocker
> I would tend to use "strainer" to mean something to separate solids from
> a liquid and "sieve" to mean something "used to separate the coarser
> from the finer particles of any loose material" (OED).
I learned the opposite from my mom's kitchen: A sieve was a fine mesh
(ca. 1mm) to let only liquid through, and a strainer was a coarse mesh
(ca. 5mm) to let particles be washed out along with the water. A
colander might be called a strainer but would never be called a sieve.
Sifting and sieving were also completely different things. Sifting
clumps out of something granular would be done with a strainer. Sifting
flour could be done with a sieve and spoon but normally had its own
special implement, a sifter, with wires or slats scraping across a fine
mesh. Sieving was an onerous task that would make her put a recipe
aside: mashing something gelatinous like a fruit through a sieve to
turn it into sauce.
ŹR
CDB
> Wood Avens wrote:
experience with the "tammy" of her girlhood. I see from OneLook that
it is actually a "tamis", "a sieve, or strainer, made of a kind of
woolen cloth". I wouldn't mind seeing that series again.
JimboCat
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
[Edward Lear]
Unfortunately, you can't see in the illustration which variety it is,
strainer, sieve, or what. Clearly not a colander, though:
http://holyjoe.net/poetry/lear.htm
Ohh, look! The whole book is on Project Gutenberg WITH all the
original illustrations!
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13647/13647-h/13647-h.htm
Kewl.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
Aibohphobia: The fear of palindromes
James Hogg
Since somebody has brought poetry into this, I thought I could rewrite
the opening of Robert Graves' "The Naked and the Nude":
For me, the strainer and the sieve
(Which lexicographers all give
As synonyms that should express
The same essential holeyness
for riddling) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
--
James
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>Since somebody has brought poetry into this, I thought I could rewrite
>the opening of Robert Graves' "The Naked and the Nude":
>
>For me, the strainer and the sieve
>(Which lexicographers all give
>As synonyms that should express
>The same essential holeyness
>for riddling) stand as wide apart
>As love from lies, or truth from art.
>
Holey stanza, Batman!
Jonathan Morton
news:992dndhMJ87MMU3W...@vex.net...
>
> "Sieve" and "colander" are used informally to mean something full of
> holes, but I don't think "strainer" is.
"The roof is leaking like a strainer,
There's loads of 'roaches in the hall".
- Speedy Gonzales
Regards
Jonathan