Full Marks to a Spot-On Poster, or Zog the Undeniable



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Carl Fogel

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Full Marks to a Spot-On Poster, or Zog the Undeniable

There once was a haiku-loving "technically Welsh" cycle-bard Who hated to stop on leafy paths to "de-
clag his mudguard." He preferred "lorry suction" on the "dual carriageway tarmac," Protected by "a
slightly fettled steel angle bracket," And in wintre took "bricking it all the way to work" hard.

Zog is undeniably bi-lingual. His posts on rec.bicycling.tech arouse little suspicion, but he often
lets go on uk.rec.cycling with phrases that charm the American eye. He has mentioned in passing
being "technically Welsh" and provides occasional haiku.

While Zog prefers drafting trucks on paved roads in daylight, (no need for his rear lamp mounted on
an altered bracket), he once tried a bike-path at night and was appalled by wet leaves:

" . . . sucked up so many leaves that I had to stop again to de-clag my mudguard. . . . Stuff that
for a game of soldiers."

Presumably, however, Zog prefers even leaf-littered bike trails to being forced to walk to work in
wintre on brick sidewalks.

Rubbish! Pretty barking! Total codswallop! Tossers! Throw a wobbly over a duff frame!

Full kit! Full marks! Spot on! Give it a go! A smartish stop!

Spoke keys, spanners, kerbs, trams, punctures, tyres, metre, centre, wintre--

Well, maybe not that last one . . .

Hire cars, gas rings, full-sussers!

Best of all was his comment on fence wire strung across a bike path:

"Sounds like the work of the Provisional RAC."

Next week: Ryan Cousineau
 
Carl Fogel wrote:

> Full Marks to a Spot-On Poster, or Zog the Undeniable

I'm flattered. And for the record, I was born in Wales, live in England and my occasional use of
words/spelling like "fenders", "pedaling" and "tire" (did I really use that one?) is purely for your
convenience, the American lords and gods of the Interweb.

Any technical expertise I may have with bikes has been painfully won from a pile of stripped, bent
and rusted components, strange bikes made from bits of other ones and a realisation that even
really, really badly built wheels rarely break, such is the basic genius of the design.

Pop quiz - who invented the tension spoked wheel (contrary to popular opinion, Jobst Brandt is not
*quite* that old)? A shiny new Dura-Ace ball bearing to the first correct answer.
 
Zog The Undeniable wrote:

> ...I was born in Wales, live in England and my occasional use of words/spelling like "fenders",
> "pedaling" and "tire" (did I really use that one?) is purely for your convenience, the American
> lords and gods of the Interweb.

From the 1911 Encyclopedia _Britannica_:

"Tire (3) is somewhat obscure etymologically. It may be connected with attire, especially with
reference to a similarity to the band of a womans headdress, or it may be a corruption of tie-r,
meaning that which ties or fastens together, though this is rejected by Skeat. The spelling tyre is
not now accepted by the best English authorities, and is unrecognized in America.

"The tire of a wheel is the outer circumferential portion that rolls on the ground or the track
prepared for it..."

http://68.1911encyclopedia.org/T/TI/TIRE.htm

"TYRE (Phoen. and Hebr. is, -nx =" rock," Assyr. Surru, Egypt. Dara, Early Lat. Sarra), the most
famous city of Phoenicia. It is now represented by the petty town of Sur (about 5,000
inhabitants),..."

http://26.1911encyclopedia.org/T/TY/TYR.htm

Sheldon "Tires" Brown +-----------------------------------------+
| Man invented language to satisfy his | deep need to complain. -- Lily Tomlin |
+-----------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts Phone 617-244-
9772 FAX 617-244-1041 http://harriscyclery.com Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com
 
Zog The Undeniable <[email protected]> writes:

> Pop quiz - who invented the tension spoked wheel (contrary to popular opinion, Jobst Brandt is not
> *quite* that old)? A shiny new Dura-Ace ball bearing to the first correct answer.

Starley.
 
Sheldon Brown wrote:
> ..... The spelling tyre is not now accepted by the best English authorities, and is unrecognized
> in America.
>

Mmm the OED has an entry for tyre
 
[email protected] wrote:

> Sheldon Brown wrote:
>> ..... The spelling tyre is not now accepted by the best English authorities, and is unrecognized
>> in America.
>
> Mmm the OED has an entry for tyre

[Probably the same word as prec., the tire being originally (sense 1) the 'attire', 'clothing', or
'accoutrement' of the wheel. From 15th to 17th
c. spelt (like prec.) tire and tyre indifferently. Before 1700 tyre became generally obsolete, and
tire remained as the regular form, as it still does in America; but in Great Britain tyre was
revived in the nineteenth cent. as the popular term for the rubber rim of bicycle, tricycle,
carriage, or motor-car wheels, and is sometimes used for the steel tires of locomotive wheels.
During the twentieth cent. tyre became standard in the British Isles.]

2b. An endless cushion of rubber, solid, hollow, or tubular, fitted (usually in combination with an
inner tube filled with compressed air: cf. PNEUMATIC 1b) on the rim of a bicycle, tricycle, or motor-
car; now also often upon the wheels of invalid and baby-carriages, and light horse vehicles. In this
sense now commonly spelt tyre in Great Britain (see TYRE); tire is retained in America.

-- OED online

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling
 
Zog The Undeniable <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Carl Fogel wrote:
>
> > Full Marks to a Spot-On Poster, or Zog the Undeniable
>
> I'm flattered. And for the record, I was born in Wales, live in England and my occasional use of
> words/spelling like "fenders", "pedaling" and "tire" (did I really use that one?) is purely for
> your convenience, the American lords and gods of the Interweb.
>
> Any technical expertise I may have with bikes has been painfully won from a pile of stripped, bent
> and rusted components, strange bikes made from bits of other ones and a realisation that even
> really, really badly built wheels rarely break, such is the basic genius of the design.
>
> Pop quiz - who invented the tension spoked wheel (contrary to popular opinion, Jobst Brandt is not
> *quite* that old)? A shiny new Dura-Ace ball bearing to the first correct answer.

Dear Zog,

Aha! Flattre-y got me somewhere.

http://www.ohtm.org/wheel.html

This site suggests an 1802 patent for the first wire tension spoke by G.F. Bauer (or Baure).

But elsewhere people suggest various British inventors, including a glidre enthusiast who needed
light landing wheels.

Sinc-rely,

Carl Fogel
 
"Carl Fogel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Full Marks to a Spot-On Poster, or Zog the Undeniable
>
> There once was a haiku-loving "technically Welsh" cycle-bard Who hated to stop on leafy paths to
> "de-clag his mudguard." He preferred "lorry suction" on the "dual carriageway tarmac," Protected
> by "a slightly fettled steel angle bracket," And in wintre took "bricking it all the way to
> work" hard.
>
> Zog is undeniably bi-lingual. His posts on rec.bicycling.tech arouse little suspicion, but he
> often lets go on uk.rec.cycling with phrases that charm the American eye. He has mentioned in
> passing being "technically Welsh" and provides occasional haiku.

Is he from Llanfairpwllgwyngychgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch.

Phil Holman
 
<< Pop quiz - who invented the tension spoked wheel (contrary to popular opinion, Jobst Brandt is
not *quite* that old)? A shiny new Dura-Ace ball bearing to the first correct answer. >>

Dear Zog,

Good question. "Starley," as mentioned by Tim McNamara, invented the tangentially-spoked wheel in
1874, for high-wheelers. But this Starley was the uncle of the Starley who is credited with
inventing the "safety bicycle," after decades of really ugly front-wheel-drive cycling gripped the
nation. I believe
J.K. invented the safety bike and James the modern spoked wheel. They were in business
together IIRC.

As for who invented the tension spoked wheel, which presumably came before the tangentially spoked
wheel, I have no idea.

Robert
 
Sheldon Brown <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

[snip]

> From the 1911 Encyclopedia _Britannica_:
>
> "Tire (3) is somewhat obscure etymologically. It may be connected with attire, especially with
> reference to a similarity to the band of a womans headdress, or it may be a corruption of tie-r,
> meaning that which ties or fastens together, though this is rejected by Skeat. The spelling tyre
> is not now accepted by the best English authorities, and is unrecognized in America.
>

[snip]

>
> Sheldon "Tires" Brown

Dear Sheldon,

Aw, I'm tired of spelling. (Look! Doubled post-vocalic consonant!)

It looks as if Holland (Another dpvc!) Mechanics forgot to read the 1911 Encyclopaedia (common
spelling) Britannica (And 'nother 'n' ancient dpvc):

http://www.hollandmechanics.com/

They not only like "tyres" but also prefer "trueing" them with their machines. The first is a
charming Anglicism. The latter (later, when you think about it, and a good example like hatter/hater
of subtle spelling forces) appalls me personally (ooh, or maybe oh, or perhaps O! look at those post-
vocalic consonants doubling--unlike the -bl- in "doubling" just now), but "trueing" has an
interesting history and is not undu(e)ly aw(e)ful(l) (faded dpvc).

Spelling arguments, amusingly, tend to attract people who are deeply convinced that they must be
right and that everyone else must be wrong, yet depend on the weight of what is little more than
popular voting in a beauty contest.

Few of the most vehement actually (dpvc) know anything about the history or linguistic forces that
shape the modern forms of words--and God forbid that the modern forms should include variants. Yet
such folk rarely distinguish between which and that, or fluently (never gonna be a dpvc in fluently,
while gonna is never gonna lose it) drop both without exciting comment or confusion.

The "best authorities" in popular orthography are always the ones who agree with you and
are invariably self-appointed. (Yez never meet 'em down th' Kwik-Way, as Mister Dooley
might say to-day.)

Personally, (dpvc) I find myself missing (dpvc) those terminal voiced -e's for a while after a bout
of Chaucer.

If they can't explain why colonel has no "r" or the different (dpvc) doubling (no dpvc) of d's and
l's in peddling versus pedalling or what's going on in dental/tooth/teeth or vocalic consonants,
they're just repeating what they've been told is proper at the fashion show.

K/Carl Gra/ey V/Fogel

P.S. Quick, which do you vote for--fogeling or fogelling and why? A little different than earthling,
battling, trifling, or baffling, a bit like yodel(l)ing, perhaps like dwelling, selling,
yelling? That's why the smart money is on fogel-ing. Ya gotta (dpvc) know something about how
the spoken and written (dpvc) squabble (dpvc) with each other and which one usually (dpvc) wins
before you can explain how it should be spelt--whereupon the rest of the world gives your
theory the finger and it ends up spelled (dpvc) the way they like it.

K/C. G. V/F.
 
Carl Fogel wrote:

> Aha! Flattre-y got me somewhere.
>
> http://www.ohtm.org/wheel.html
>
> This site suggests an 1802 patent for the first wire tension spoke by G.F. Bauer (or Baure).

Spot on! Apparently Starley invented tangential spoking though.
 
"Phil Holman" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Carl Fogel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Full Marks to a Spot-On Poster, or Zog the Undeniable
> >
> > There once was a haiku-loving "technically Welsh" cycle-bard Who hated to stop on leafy paths to
> > "de-clag his mudguard." He preferred "lorry suction" on the "dual carriageway tarmac," Protected
> > by "a slightly fettled steel angle bracket," And in wintre took "bricking it all the way to
> > work" hard.
> >
> > Zog is undeniably bi-lingual. His posts on rec.bicycling.tech arouse little suspicion, but he
> > often lets go on uk.rec.cycling with phrases that charm the American eye. He has mentioned in
> > passing being "technically Welsh" and provides occasional haiku.
>
> Is he from Llanfairpwllgwyngychgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch.
>
> Phil Holman

Dear Phil,

I doubt it, but I can't help wondering if you're trying to tease Jobst with those four L's in a row.

Or Gene Daniels with the sili-og-og-og-och.

Carllll F-og-og-og-el
 
"Carl Fogel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Phil Holman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> > "Carl Fogel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]...
> > > Full Marks to a Spot-On Poster, or Zog the Undeniable
> > >
> > > There once was a haiku-loving "technically Welsh" cycle-bard Who hated to stop on leafy paths
> > > to "de-clag his mudguard." He preferred "lorry suction" on the "dual carriageway tarmac,"
> > > Protected by "a slightly fettled steel angle bracket," And in wintre took "bricking it all the
> > > way to work" hard.
> > >
> > > Zog is undeniably bi-lingual. His posts on rec.bicycling.tech arouse little suspicion, but he
> > > often lets go on uk.rec.cycling with phrases that charm the American eye. He has mentioned in
> > > passing being "technically Welsh" and provides occasional haiku.
> >
> > Is he from
Llanfairpwllgwyngychgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch.
> >
> > Phil Holman
>
> Dear Phil,
>
> I doubt it, but I can't help wondering if you're trying to tease Jobst with those four L's
> in a row.
>
> Or Gene Daniels with the sili-og-og-og-och.
>
> Carllll F-og-og-og-el

The ll sound is similar to a thl sound in English, Llan being close to Thlan but with the tongue
on the roof of the mouth not between the teeth. The llll is the end of one word and the beginning
of another.

Phil Holman
 
Zog The Undeniable <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Carl Fogel wrote:
>
> > Aha! Flattre-y got me somewhere.
> >
> > http://www.ohtm.org/wheel.html
> >
> > This site suggests an 1802 patent for the first wire tension spoke by G.F. Bauer (or Baure).
>
>
> Spot on! Apparently Starley invented tangential spoking though.

Dear Zog,

If I am known for anything, it is for my unswerving refusal to go off on tangents. As the subject
line of this thread clearly indicates, the topic is--

Never mind.

Carl Fogel
 
Carl Fogel wrote:

> If I am known for anything, it is for my unswerving refusal to go off on tangents.

I'm asymptotic. I get closer and closer to the topic but never quite end up on it ;-)
 
On 6 Feb 2004 21:41:02 -0800, [email protected] (Carl Fogel)
wrote:
>P.S. Quick, which do you vote for--fogeling or fogelling and why

Fogeling. I've been fond of the single 'l' lately, as in pedaling. There was another word recently
where I happily used the same strategy, with good results.
--
Rick "Grammer be damned!" Onanian
 
[email protected] (Carl Fogel) wrote in message news:

Now I know I can defend my spelling (dpvc) as vigo(u)rously as I defend my other opinions.

A verry (dpvc) entertaining read. Thanks for the effort.
 
You missed some, Carl. I put 'em in brackets.

> Spelling [dpvc] arguments, amusingly, tend to attract [dpvc] people who are deeply convinced that
> they must be right and that everyone else must be wrong, yet depend on the weight of what is
> little [dpvc] more than popular voting in a beauty contest.
>
> Few of the most vehement actually (dpvc) know anything about the history or linguistic forces that
> shape the modern forms of words--and God forbid that the modern forms should include variants. Yet
> such folk rarely distinguish between which and that, or fluently (never gonna be a dpvc in
> fluently, while gonna is never gonna lose it) drop both without exciting comment [dpvc] or
> confusion.
>
> The "best authorities" in popular orthography are always the ones who agree with you and are
> invariably self-appointed [dpvc]. (Yez never meet 'em down th' Kwik-Way, as Mister Dooley might
> say to-day.)

> P.S. Quick, which do you vote for--fogeling or fogelling and why?

fogling. It is pretty easy to figure out the pronunciation, and that extra syllable seems redundant.

Dave dvt at psu dot edu
 
dvt <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> You missed some, Carl. I put 'em in brackets.
>
> > Spelling [dpvc] arguments, amusingly, tend to attract [dpvc] people who are deeply convinced
> > that they must be right and that everyone else must be wrong, yet depend on the weight of what
> > is little [dpvc] more than popular voting in a beauty contest.
> >
> > Few of the most vehement actually (dpvc) know anything about the history or linguistic forces
> > that shape the modern forms of words--and God forbid that the modern forms should include
> > variants. Yet such folk rarely distinguish between which and that, or fluently (never gonna be a
> > dpvc in fluently, while gonna is never gonna lose it) drop both without exciting comment [dpvc]
> > or confusion.
> >
> > The "best authorities" in popular orthography are always the ones who agree with you and are
> > invariably self-appointed [dpvc]. (Yez never meet 'em down th' Kwik-Way, as Mister Dooley might
> > say to-day.)
>
> > P.S. Quick, which do you vote for--fogeling or fogelling and why?
>
> fogling. It is pretty easy to figure out the pronunciation, and that extra syllable seems
> redundant.
>
> Dave dvt at psu dot edu

Dear Dave,

Is "fogling" actually easy to figure out?

Is this pronounced as if you mean a young fog, to rhyme with "goggling"?

Or as in fee-fie-foh-fum with the sound of "boat" or "wrote"--fogeling.

(In any case, the vocalic consonant version of "L" marks the slippery spot where the a-e-i-o-u-and-sometimes-
y breaks its academic hip. "Little" is two syllables, but the L's are quite diff-runt (or diff-er-
ent). Sometimes they gang up on the helpless dental consonant -tt- and pulverize it--and then we
have the slurred single syllable l'il, as in "Dave has two l'il boyz, wun younger'n t'other."

Charles Fo-gahl, according to the most recent tech support pronunciation
 
Call Forge wrote:
> dvt <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>>fogling. It is pretty easy to figure out the pronunciation, and that extra syllable seems
>>redundant.

> Is "fogling" actually easy to figure out?

I thought so. Just remove the f, pronounce it, then put the f back on.

Dave
 
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