Bellows-mender
Marius Hancu
What's a bellows-mender?
It's even in Shakespeare
"Francis Flute the bellows-mender"
but I am not sure if this applies:
------
bellows
1 : an instrument or machine that by alternate expansion and contraction
or by rise and fall of the top draws in air through a valve or orifice
and expels it more or less forcibly through a tube; also : any of
various forms of rotary and other blowers --
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
------
Thanks.
Marius Hancu
Derek Turner
> Hello:
>
> What's a bellows-mender?
>
> It's even in Shakespeare
> "Francis Flute the bellows-mender"
> but I am not sure if this applies:
Yep, it's someone who mends them. It's a specialist form of
leather-work. In the days of horses every village had at least one large
pair of bellows in the smithy and another in the church organ. Because
of the 'concertina' (q.v.) shape of bellows they are prone to splitting
at the folds, especially if the leather has been allowed to dry out.
the Omrud
Aha. This is one of those trick ones. The bellows mender mends bellows.
Bellows are devices for blowing air - we use small ones for getting
fires going
http://www.glassmenagerie.com/catalog/images/Bellows.jpg
and dirty great big ones for powering organs. Bellows were made of
leather until recently (it's very flexible) and so I suppose the bellows
mender was part of the leather trade.
Flute is one of the rude mechanicals in Midsummer Night's Dream - an
ordinary working man. He has to play the woman in the Tragedie of
Pyramus and Thisby because he has a high-pitched voice - Shakespeare may
have been making a little joke about organ pipes.
You don't say where you've enountered it. Flute is the only famous
bellows mender I can think of, so your source may be referring to the
play in some way.
--
David
Marius Hancu
> You don't say where you've enountered it. Flute is the only famous
> bellows mender I can think of, so your source may be referring to the
> play in some way.
Nope. Still in Butler:-)
--------
This lady occupied the whole ground floor. In the front kitchen
there was a tinker. The back kitchen was let to a bellows-mender.
The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler, p. 328
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Way-of-All-Flesh5.html
--------
Thank you both.
Marius Hancu
Marius Hancu
> In the days of horses every village had at least one large
> pair of bellows in the smithy and another in the church organ. Because
> of the 'concertina' (q.v.) shape of bellows they are prone to splitting
> at the folds, especially if the leather has been allowed to dry out.
Thank you for the historical considerations:-)
Marius Hancu
the Omrud
Ah. He was just a bellows mender. Nothing else to read into it.
--
David
Nick Spalding
on Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:39:10 -0500:
It means exactly what it says. The leather of a bellows wears after a
time and requires patching, performed by the bellows-mender. A bellows
looks like this:
<http://www.woodheatstoves.com/zcart/images/61068%2015%20inch%20Wood%20Bellow%20with%20Medallion.jpg>
aka <http://tinyurl.com/3cwlpg>
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Marius Hancu
> It means exactly what it says. The leather of a bellows wears after a
> time and requires patching, performed by the bellows-mender. A bellows
> looks like this:
> <http://www.woodheatstoves.com/zcart/images/61068%2015%20inch%20Wood%2...>
> aka <http://tinyurl.com/3cwlpg>
Thanks.
I thought more about an accordion, organ or smith's blowing
machine ...
Marius Hancu
Nick Spalding
<d55b6b9a-0d54-4ee6...@e4g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
on Mon, 4 Feb 2008 03:42:18 -0800 (PST):
I'm sure a bellows-mender would turn his hand to them too.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Amethyst Deceiver
@e4g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, Marius...@gmail.com says...
I could be wrong, but I think your smith's blowing machine /is/ a
bellows.
--
Linz
Wet Yorks via Cambridge, York, London and Watford
My accent may vary
Mike Lyle
Though Butler may have been having an irrelevant little smirk: one of
the other "mechanicals" was Snout, the tinker.
--
Mike.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
irwell
wrote:
I just recently had a go at making a bellows for a camera,
interesting as you have to fold the pleats in a certain pattern.
Finished up buying one from a firm that specialises in restoring
old plate cameras. Though bellows were common on the popular
folding cameras as recently as the 1950s.
Donna Richoux
The others have discussed bellows admirably; I wish just to add there is
a 19th-century expression "bellows to mend" that is a little hard for
Americans to puzzle out the meaning of (perhaps the Brits still use it,
I don't know). It was said when someone was gasping, panting, and
generally out of breath.
Examples from Google Books:
1832
... until " bellows to mend" caused them to pause a
little for breath.
1850
... our tumbles were innumerable, our breathing
utensils in most admired disorder; it was " bellows
to mend!" with all of us. ...
This has nothing to do with your passage; I put it in only out of a
sense of completeness.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Marius Hancu
> The others have discussed bellows admirably; I wish just to add there is
> a 19th-century expression "bellows to mend" that is a little hard for
> Americans to puzzle out the meaning of (perhaps the Brits still use it,
> I don't know). It was said when someone was gasping, panting, and
> generally out of breath.
Don't laugh: I thought about "bellows-mender" meaning also a doctor
specializing in the treatment of lungs:-)
Marius Hancu
Django Cat
> > 1 : an instrument or machine that by alternate expansion and
> > contraction or by rise and fall of the top draws in air through a
> > valve or orifice and expels it more or less forcibly through a
> > tube; also : any of various forms of rotary and other blowers --
> >
> > http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
> > ------
>
> Aha. This is one of those trick ones. The bellows mender mends
> bellows.
>
> Bellows are devices for blowing air - we use small ones for getting
> fires going http://www.glassmenagerie.com/catalog/images/Bellows.jpg
>
> and dirty great big ones for powering organs. Bellows were made of
> leather until recently (it's very flexible) and so I suppose the
> bellows mender was part of the leather trade.
>
> Flute is one of the rude mechanicals in Midsummer Night's Dream - an
> ordinary working man. He has to play the woman in the Tragedie of
> Pyramus and Thisby because he has a high-pitched voice - Shakespeare
> may have been making a little joke about organ pipes.
Or Bill may have been referring to a well-known, but now lost, bar room
story:
"... so she took his codpiece down the bellows-mender!!! Fnarr, fnarr,
it's the way I tell'em. 'Nother pint of sack, anyone?"
DC
--
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
Richoux) wrote:
>Marius Hancu <NOS...@videotron.ca> wrote:
>
>> What's a bellows-mender?
>>
>> It's even in Shakespeare
>> "Francis Flute the bellows-mender"
>> but I am not sure if this applies:
>>
>> ------
>> bellows
>>
>> 1 : an instrument or machine that by alternate expansion and contraction
>> or by rise and fall of the top draws in air through a valve or orifice
>> and expels it more or less forcibly through a tube; also : any of
>> various forms of rotary and other blowers --
>>
>> http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
>> ------
>The others have discussed bellows admirably; I wish just to add there is
>a 19th-century expression "bellows to mend" that is a little hard for
>Americans to puzzle out the meaning of (perhaps the Brits still use it,
>I don't know). It was said when someone was gasping, panting, and
>generally out of breath.
I've never heard it used.
>
>Examples from Google Books:
>
> 1832
> ... until " bellows to mend" caused them to pause a
> little for breath.
>
> 1850
> ... our tumbles were innumerable, our breathing
> utensils in most admired disorder; it was " bellows
> to mend!" with all of us. ...
>
>This has nothing to do with your passage; I put it in only out of a
>sense of completeness.
I very strongly suspect that "bellows to mend" was the
street-cry of an itinerant bellows-mender.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Athel Cornish-Bowden
<mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> said:
> [ ... ]
> Though Butler may have been having an irrelevant little smirk: one of
> the other "mechanicals" was Snout, the tinker.
>
As I gather from some of your other posts that you lurk in alt.origins
(I also lurk there occasionally, but find myself overwhelmed by the
vast number of threads and vast number of contributions, mostly of a
combative nature, to each one -- do you know of any easy way of
guessing which ones are going to be worth reading?), I will give in to
the temptation to go OT, and remark that besides his better known
literary work Samuel Butler also wrote quite a lot about evolution
(from what we would nowadays call a Lamarckian point of view). Karl
Popper considered him to be the best writer of the 19th century on the
subject. I find that amazing as it indicates that Popper never
understood the importance of natural selection but thought that Darwin
and Wallace were just two of the long line of people who had noticed
that organisms evolve. I need to get to the bottom of this (i.e. read
what Butler wrote), as my information is at best second-hand.
By coincidence Darwin and Butler were educated at the same school,
though not at the same time and I don't know if they knew one another.
Probably they did, as Darwin's headmaster was another Samuel Butler
(grandfather, I think, but maybe father).
--
athel
Donna Richoux
> tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote:
> >The others have discussed bellows admirably; I wish just to add there is
> >a 19th-century expression "bellows to mend" that is a little hard for
> >Americans to puzzle out the meaning of (perhaps the Brits still use it,
> >I don't know). It was said when someone was gasping, panting, and
> >generally out of breath.
>
> I've never heard it used.
Probably vanished by mid-20th century, then. Is this going to turn out
to be yet another phrase I learned through Georgette Heyer, or (I hope)
from classier literature?
MasterTexts has no results. Literaturepost has two:
Mike and Psmith by Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville - Chapter 17
[Student Mike is being chased by housemaster Mr. Downing]
Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in
the Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace.
Rodney Stone by Doyle, Arthur Conan - Chapter 11
[about a prize-fight (boxing match)]
...the two fell panting side by side upon the ground. Jim sprang up,
however, and walked over to his corner, while Berks, distressed by his
evening's dissipation, leaned one arm upon Mendoza and the other
upon Dutch Sam as he made for his seat.
"Bellows to mend!" cried Jem Belcher. "Where's the four to one
now?"
> >
> >Examples from Google Books:
> >
> > 1832
> > ... until " bellows to mend" caused them to pause a
> > little for breath.
> >
> > 1850
> > ... our tumbles were innumerable, our breathing
> > utensils in most admired disorder; it was " bellows
> > to mend!" with all of us. ...
> >
> >This has nothing to do with your passage; I put it in only out of a
> >sense of completeness.
>
> I very strongly suspect that "bellows to mend" was the
> street-cry of an itinerant bellows-mender.
Oh, yes, I'm sure that was the origin. And I imagine the connection is
very direct and simple, because bellows that were in need of mending
would gasp and wheeze and fail to pump air properly, and so were
metaphorically like a person in that condition.
Mike Lyle
> On 2008-02-04 19:48:34 +0100, "Mike Lyle"
> <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> said:
>
>> [ ... ]
>
>> Though Butler may have been having an irrelevant little smirk: one of
>> the other "mechanicals" was Snout, the tinker.
>>
>
> As I gather from some of your other posts that you lurk in alt.origins
> (I also lurk there occasionally, but find myself overwhelmed by the
> vast number of threads and vast number of contributions, mostly of a
> combative nature, to each one -- do you know of any easy way of
> guessing which ones are going to be worth reading?),
No, I'm afraid not. The nearest thing to a half-reasonable triage seems
to be by name. YMWV, but there are some posters one need never read:
people like snex, Ye Olde, and the expanding-earthers, for example.
Others are often very instructive --Wilkins, Harshman, Perplexed, Major,
sometimes Forrest (his own website is fascinating), for example. Yet
others are, until one tires of it, unintentionally comic in small doses,
but I now check them at random intervals just to remind me what we're up
against (the real nutcases make me sad rather than alarming me, but
apparently rational ones like Zoe do scare me). I suspect Bulcher of
being an AUEish kindred spirit. Other than these, I don't usually read
many now. The FAQ is very good, though (or because) very earnest.
> I will give in to
> the temptation to go OT, and remark that besides his better known
> literary work Samuel Butler also wrote quite a lot about evolution
> (from what we would nowadays call a Lamarckian point of view). Karl
> Popper considered him to be the best writer of the 19th century on the
> subject. I find that amazing as it indicates that Popper never
> understood the importance of natural selection but thought that Darwin
> and Wallace were just two of the long line of people who had noticed
> that organisms evolve. I need to get to the bottom of this (i.e. read
> what Butler wrote), as my information is at best second-hand.
>
> By coincidence Darwin and Butler were educated at the same school,
> though not at the same time and I don't know if they knew one another.
> Probably they did, as Darwin's headmaster was another Samuel Butler
> (grandfather, I think, but maybe father).
I don't think I knew that about Butler. I certainly didn't know that
about Popper (whom I've mostly taken as read); but I think the pendulum
has been a bit against him for a long time now. Unless, of course, it
hasn't: one of my many blank spaces.
Don Aitken
<athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>By coincidence Darwin and Butler were educated at the same school,
>though not at the same time and I don't know if they knew one another.
>Probably they did, as Darwin's headmaster was another Samuel Butler
>(grandfather, I think, but maybe father).
Grandfather. According to Wikipedia, he had retired before his
grandson attended the school, so that must be after Darwin's time
there.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Butler_(novelist)>
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> [ ... ]
> MasterTexts has no results. Literaturepost has two:
>
> Mike and Psmith by Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville - Chapter 17
> [Student Mike is being chased by housemaster Mr. Downing]
> Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
> strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
> length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
> Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed.
Can that be a reference to Roger Bannister of 4-minute mile fame?
Surely the book had been written long before anyone had heard of Roger
Bannister, or did Wodehouse bring it up to date with a topical
reference or two?
--
athel
Donna Richoux
I wondered about that, too, but didn't stop to look up the date.
ABEbooks says the first edition was 1953, so it was later than the
period I usually associate with Wodehouse.
What a long life he had, 93 years, 1881 to 1975. Books published during
seven decades, 1902 to the 1960s. Into an eighth if you cound the
posthumous one.
Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, but Wikipedia shows he was
in the news a lot in 1952 and 1953.
Mike Lyle
I think he must have been persuaded to update the 1909 text a bit. Look
at what Literaturepost calls "Chapter 1": it's actually an author's
preface, and contains anachronistic mentions of Evelyn Waugh and Perry
Mason. Interestin', but not the real McC, eh, what, Jeeves? "I fear not,
sir."
Oleg Lego
I remember the 1954 Empire Games in Vancouver quite well, but
unfortunately, was not at Empire Stadium on the day that Bannister and
Landy both ran the mile in under 4 minutes. It was the talk of the
town for a long time, and the statue (showing both runners in action)
still stands near the original site. Every time I saw the statue, I
wished I had picked that day to go.
--
WCdnE
Mike Lyle
> On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 15:47:32 +0100, Donna Richoux posted:
>>
>> Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, but Wikipedia shows he
>> was in the news a lot in 1952 and 1953.
>
> I remember the 1954 Empire Games in Vancouver quite well, but
> unfortunately, was not at Empire Stadium on the day that Bannister and
> Landy both ran the mile in under 4 minutes. It was the talk of the
> town for a long time, and the statue (showing both runners in action)
> still stands near the original site. Every time I saw the statue, I
> wished I had picked that day to go.
I know it's not a distinction in the slightest, but I do get a warm
fuzzy feeling to think that I have run on the Iffley Road track and may
even have, sort of, shared a cinder with the great man.
Prai Jei
space-time continuum:
>>Examples from Google Books:
>>
>> 1832
>> ... until " bellows to mend" caused them to pause a
>> little for breath.
>>
>> 1850
>> ... our tumbles were innumerable, our breathing
>> utensils in most admired disorder; it was " bellows
>> to mend!" with all of us. ...
>>
>>This has nothing to do with your passage; I put it in only out of a
>>sense of completeness.
>
> I very strongly suspect that "bellows to mend" was the
> street-cry of an itinerant bellows-mender.
I've heard of "bellows" meaning "lungs" but never "bellows to mend". As you
say it might be a street cry, becoming a more general expression meaning
"you're out of it, you'll have to wait here until Bellows Repair Man comes
round."
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
irwell
We were at the 1984 Olympics in L.A. at the race meeting
when Zola Budd tripped with Mary Dekker, never forget that awful
booing sound that erupted over the Coliseum, don't often hear
that at track and field.
Django Cat
> > > You don't say where you've enountered it. Flute is the only
> > > famous bellows mender I can think of, so your source may be
> > > referring to the play in some way.
> >
> > Nope. Still in Butler:-)
> >
> > --------
> > This lady occupied the whole ground floor. In the front kitchen
> > there was a tinker. The back kitchen was let to a bellows-mender.
> >
> > The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler, p. 328
> > http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Way-of-All-Flesh5.html
> > --------
>
> Ah. He was just a bellows mender. Nothing else to read into it.
..."She was only the bellows-mender's daughter, but she... "
DC
--
Jonathan Morton
news:p9rqj.1499$wH5...@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net...
"...knew how and where to blow". Or something even less subtle.
My father certainly used to use the expression "it's bellows to mend"
meaning "we're in a right mess here" (usually of England in a sporting
context).
Regards
Jonathan
Django Cat
> "Django Cat" <nota...@address.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:p9rqj.1499$wH5...@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net...
> > the Omrud wrote:
> >
> >>> > You don't say where you've enountered it. Flute is the only
> >>> > famous bellows mender I can think of, so your source may be
> >>> > referring to the play in some way.
> > > >
> >>> Nope. Still in Butler:-)
> > > >
> >>> --------
> >>> This lady occupied the whole ground floor. In the front kitchen
> >>> there was a tinker. The back kitchen was let to a bellows-mender.
> > > >
> >>> The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler, p. 328
> >>> http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Way-of-All-Flesh5.html
> >>> --------
> > >
> > > Ah. He was just a bellows mender. Nothing else to read into it.
> >
> > ..."She was only the bellows-mender's daughter, but she... "
>
> "...knew how and where to blow". Or something even less subtle.
I was working on those lines, or, maybe "but she said 'give us a
squeeze, and I'll...'"
DC
--
Richard Bollard
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 4 Feb 2008 23:15:56 +0100, tr...@euronet.nl (Donna
>Richoux) wrote:
>
>>Marius Hancu <NOS...@videotron.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> What's a bellows-mender?
>>>
>>> It's even in Shakespeare
>>> "Francis Flute the bellows-mender"
>>> but I am not sure if this applies:
>>>
>>> ------
>>> bellows
>>>
>>> 1 : an instrument or machine that by alternate expansion and contraction
>>> or by rise and fall of the top draws in air through a valve or orifice
>>> and expels it more or less forcibly through a tube; also : any of
>>> various forms of rotary and other blowers --
>>>
>>> http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
>>> ------
>>The others have discussed bellows admirably; I wish just to add there is
>>a 19th-century expression "bellows to mend" that is a little hard for
>>Americans to puzzle out the meaning of (perhaps the Brits still use it,
>>I don't know). It was said when someone was gasping, panting, and
>>generally out of breath.
>
>I've never heard it used.
I know it from the Flashman books where it was used a few times.
--
Richard Bollard
Canberra Australia
To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT.
Oleg Lego
Never thought of that. I have run on the Empire Stadium track, during
a Vancouver-area high school track meet.
--
WCdnE