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SLEIGH

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:26 pm
by Slava
The GWotD 12/27/12:
• sleigh •

Pronunciation: slay • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, Verb

Meaning: 1. [Noun] A light carriage on narrow runners pulled by dogs, horses, or in very northern climes, reindeer. 2. [Verb] To ride in a sleigh.

Notes: English has several words for vehicles that slide across snow or ice. A sled is usually a small toy for sliding down hills, though a bobsled can accommodate four or more people. A sledge is a work sleigh, heavily built, pulled by horses or oxen over the snow or over snowless ground. The sleigh is a light, festive vehicle that we associate with happy times around Christmas.

In Play: We are approaching that time of the year when a most famous "miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer" will sail across the rooftops of our children's imaginations, "with a little old driver, so lively and quick, [they will all know] in a moment it must be St. Nick." For a showroom of sleighs built in the United States, click here.

Word History: The reason sled and sleigh are so similar is that they come from the same source. This good holiday word is another one that English borrowed twice from the same language: Dutch slede, slee "sleigh", only we assigned the two words different meanings. All the Germanic languages have very similar words meaning either "sleigh" or "sled": Norwegian slede, Swedish släde, Danish slæde, German Schlitten. They are all remindful of English slide, which is where they all come from—the local word for "slide". The spelling? If we borrowed this word from Dutch slee, why to we spell it sleigh? It has been spelled slay and sley in the past but English speakers love letters that are no more than decorative curlicues, and what better place for decorative curlicues than on the word for sleighs?

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 12:58 am
by Perry Lassiter
Slava, why do you sometimes post the W O D as a copy, whereas it usually just appears from Dr G?

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 2:40 am
by Slava
Slava, why do you sometimes post the W O D as a copy, whereas it usually just appears from Dr G?
Sometimes the Good Doctor, for whatever reason, is not able to or does not post the Word of the Day to the Agora. As a self-appointed assistant, I copy it and post it as a quote from him.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 7:28 am
by MTC
"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?"

Slava, thank you for your efforts without which the word of the day would apparently be "vacuum" all too often. Who selects the word on the days you post?

Sliding away from this administrative issue, a Google search of "sled" gets over 31,000,000 hits, a proliferation of sled ads, and a Wikipedia article on sleds, sledges, and sleighs. See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sled) Wikipedia lists over 16 types of these wintry conveyances:

Types of sleds

Sleds for recreational sledding
There are several types of widely used recreational sleds designed for sliding down snowy hills (sledding):[3]

Toboggan, an elongated sled without runners, usually made from wood or plastic

Saucer, a round sled curved like a contact lens, also without runners and usually made out of plastic or metal

Steel runner sled or flexible flyer, a steerable wooden sled with thin metal runners

Kicksled or spark, a human-powered sled

Inflatable sled or tube, a plastic membrane filled with air to make a very lightweight sled

Foam slider, a flat piece of durable foam with handles and a smooth underside

Sleds for competitive sledding
A few types of sleds are used only for a specific sport:

Bobsled (British bobsleigh), an aerodynamic composite bodied vehicle on lightweight runners

Luge and the skeleton, tiny one or two-person sleds with runners

Various types of sleds are pulled by animals such as reindeer, horses, mules, oxen, or dogs.

Other sleds

Airboard, an inflatable single-person sled, similar to a hovercraft

A cutter is a North American type of small horse-drawn sled[4]

Troika, a vehicle drawn by three horses, usually a sled, but it may also be a wheeled carriage

In some regions, "sled" [5] is colloquial slang for a snowmobile

In arctic regions, the Inuit qamutiq is uniquely adapted for travel on the sea ice

Ahkio or pulka, a traditional sled of the Lapland region, originally pulled by reindeer; now more common as a human or snowmobile-towed sled often used for cold weather expeditions by mountain rescue teams and military cold weather units to haul equipment, supplies, and passengers

In truck and tractor pulling, an implement pulled behind the machine which uses friction to stop the machine.[6]

.............................................................

Scrabble lovers and word aficionados will appreciate "qamutig"
underlined above. The more common spelling is "qamutik."

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:53 pm
by LukeJavan8
Wow! on all that.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 7:03 pm
by Slava
Slava, thank you for your efforts without which the word of the day would apparently be "vacuum" all too often. Who selects the word on the days you post?
All I do is post what the Doc wrote. It's all up to him.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 2:24 am
by Philip Hudson
The only non-wheeled land vehicle in South Texas, where I spent my salad days, was a sledge. No sleds or sleighs because no snow. I used to haul loads on a sledge pulled by a team of horses. I don't know why. We had wagons and they were better. The sledge and the horses were my grandfather's. If a vehicle didn't have an engine, my Dad eschewed it. Don’t ride in a sledge made of a flat piece of sheet-iron. Friction will give you a blistered derrière.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 6:25 am
by MTC
Physics Lab 101

Problem 1.

Horses exerting 1000N at 30 degree angle drag sledge with 100lb boy across plowed field. How long will it take before friction develops between the man driving the horses and the boy?

a.) 5 minutes
b.) not long
c.) inadequate data
d.) inversely as the square of heat transfer between bottom of boy and sledge.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:45 pm
by LukeJavan8
I'm no good a math, but eagerly await answer.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 2:05 pm
by Perry Lassiter
I have no idea, but I vote D on the principle that on multiple choice tests where you don't know the answer, the more complicated answer is often, perhaps usually, correct.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 4:12 pm
by MTC
Good night! You folks have taken me seriously. This is just a little joke I concocted using two senses of "friction" in response to Philip's boyhood anecdote, blistered bottom, etc. Any resemblance to real Physics is purely coincidental, the product of an overheated imagination.

If you must have an answer, why not "d?" It sounds good, doesn't it?

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 6:11 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Thought you knew. We always take everyone seriously on this board. (Not.)

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 8:00 pm
by Slava
While I got the fact that it was a joke, I'll risk voting for C - inadequate data. We don't know the relationship between the man driving the horses and the boy. That's where the friction question is, not about the sledge and the boy.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 9:19 pm
by LukeJavan8
Nor the boy's bottom, tsk,tsk.

Re: SLEIGH

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:17 am
by Philip Hudson
It wasn't my bottom. The anecdote is of my dad, as a child, pulling his baby sister in a makeshift toy sledge. Even though my aunt was too young to remember the scorched bottom, she still brought it (the subject, not her bottom) up on occasion.