[Dixonary] Round 2170: GAMEL - Link to the OED entry

[keating@acm.org]

keating (AT) acm (DOT) org has sent you a link to the OED entry ?*?gamel, v.. The following link allows free access to this entry for three days.
<http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/76475?p=emailAy9Lpiwskugy2&d=76475>

Message:

null

Please note: if you encounter problems accessing the entry, please try copying the link (including any final full stop or period, but omitting spaces and line-breaks), and paste it into your browser, as the way some mail programs handle these features may cause clicking the link to fail.

[Dodi Schultz]

Paul Keating wrote:

> The following link allows free access to this entry for three days.
> <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/76475?p=emailAy9Lpiwskugy2&d=76475>
>

Paul, shouldn't the def have been labeled "Obs."?? I mean, it's
centuries old. Not really English anymore, is it?

—Dodi

[Paul Keating]

One could argue similarly about forlere and mytacism, to take two recent words.

I reckon the game is about words and definitions. Labels like obsolete are not, strictly speaking, part of the definition. It’s routine for dealers to reorder, abbreviate or suppress nondefinition parts of the source dictionary article, such as cross-references, citations and etymologies, and I’m not sure that labels deserve special treatment.

Some players, myself not the least among them, now and then cook up full-blown dictionary articles rather than just bald definitions, with labels, etymology, citations and all, from motives ranging from verisimilitude to Gelbard-style comic effect. But most players don’t, so a dealer who leaves out some or all of the lexicographical apparatus is only levelling the playing field.

P

-----Original Message-----
From: Dodi Schultz

Paul, shouldn't the def have been labeled "Obs."?? I mean, it's
centuries old. Not really English anymore, is it?

—Dodi

[Dodi Schultz]

Paul Keating wrote:

> One could argue similarly about /forlere/ and /mytacism,/ to take two
> recent words.
>
> I reckon the game is about words and definitions. Labels like
> /obsolete/ are not, strictly speaking, part of the definition. It's
> routine for dealers to reorder, abbreviate or suppress nondefinition
> parts of the source dictionary article, such as cross-references,
> citations and etymologies, and I'm not sure that labels deserve
> special treatment.
>
> Some players, myself not the least among them, now and then cook up
> full-blown dictionary articles rather than just bald definitions, with
> labels, etymology, citations and all, from motives ranging from
> verisimilitude to Gelbard-style comic effect. But most players don't,
> so a dealer who leaves out some or all of the lexicographical
> apparatus is only levelling the playing field.

Your point is well taken, Paul. It's just that this one seemed, well,
more obsolete than most. Hm. I guess something can't be more or less
obsolete; it isn't or it isn't. Okay, obsolete for more centuries. But I
grant that it was once definitely English.

---Dodi

[John Barrs]

I guess my DQ needs explaining if the word is so rare as the OED suggests. I
had three reasons for 'knowing' the word as gaming - I have seen 'gamelin'
in historical novels as an upperclass English-Twit elision from gambling (as
in "gamelin don't y'know") I also know it from somewhere, (maybe
Shakespeare or a contemporary like Dekker or maybe Ben Johnson - my memory
says definitely a play) meaning to gambol "as a lamb gamels" and finally I
misremembered the word for street-urchin in french as gamelin (this is
completely incorrect the word is gamin) but deduced games from that

JohnnyB

On 6 January 2011 20:34, keating (AT) acm (DOT) org <keating (AT) acm (DOT) org> wrote:

> keating (AT) acm (DOT) org has sent you a link to the OED entry ? ?gamel, v.. The
> following link allows free access to this entry for three days.
> <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/76475?p=emailAy9Lpiwskugy2&d=76475>
>
> Message:
>
> null
>
> Please note: if you encounter problems accessing the entry, please try
> copying the link (including any final full stop or period, but omitting
> spaces and line-breaks), and paste it into your browser, as the way some
> mail programs handle these features may cause clicking the link to fail.
>
>

[Paul Keating]

Johnny,

I think your surmise that gamel is in some sense a variant of gamble/gambol is likely to be right: the entry for gamble (see this full entry) covers much the same ground. I reckon the only reason the OED editors didn’t fold gamel into the entry for gamble was (a) a lack of convincing evidence, and (b) a bad dating mismatch; rather than that they didn’t agree with you.

From: John Barrs
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 11:05 AM
To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Subject: Re: [Dixonary] Round 2170: GAMEL - Link to the OED entry

I guess my DQ needs explaining if the word is so rare as the OED suggests. I had three reasons for 'knowing' the word as gaming - I have seen 'gamelin' in historical novels as an upperclass English-Twit elision from gambling (as in "gamelin don't y'know") I also know it from somewhere, (maybe Shakespeare or a contemporary like Dekker or maybe Ben Johnson - my memory says definitely a play) meaning to gambol "as a lamb gamels" and finally I misremembered the word for street-urchin in french as gamelin (this is completely incorrect the word is gamin) but deduced games from that

JohnnyB


On 6 January 2011 20:34, keating (AT) acm (DOT) org <keating (AT) acm (DOT) org> wrote:

keating (AT) acm (DOT) org has sent you a link to the OED entry ? ?gamel, v.. The following link allows free access to this entry for three days.
<http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/76475?p=emailAy9Lpiwskugy2&d=76475>

Message:

null

Please note: if you encounter problems accessing the entry, please try copying the link (including any final full stop or period, but omitting spaces and line-breaks), and paste it into your browser, as the way some mail programs handle these features may cause clicking the link to fail.