hobby horse

treeseed larger hobby-horses feature in some traditional seasonal customs such as Mummers Plays and the Morris dance in the British Isles) Jan 20, 2008

uselessness My childhood was a period of extended affliction from legomania. We also had one of those bouncy horses, but I broke it almost immediately. I used a broom as a stick horse a couple of times, but ended up breaking the broom too. Jun 22, 2007

reesetee But...but...that requires imagination! Plus you get dust bunnies in your face. ;-) Jun 22, 2007

trivet A broom makes a perfectly good stick horse... Jun 22, 2007

reesetee Nor I. But we did have one of those bouncy horses that sit in a big metal frame. They're fun, until you tip the scales at more than about 30 lbs.
Jun 22, 2007

uselessness Hardly. My family was so poor, I didn't even get a toy horse with a stick for a body. Jun 22, 2007

reesetee Word elitist. ;-) Jun 22, 2007

uselessness I take it back... I've seen elaborate antique ones in museums that almost look too delicate for actual play. Beautiful though. I wonder if one might call those hobby horses, while the cruder versions remain toy horses with sticks for bodies. ;-) Jun 22, 2007

reesetee Hmm. I never really considered one's socioeconomic status in relation to hobby horse ownership. I'll have to do more research. Anyone? Jun 22, 2007

uselessness Yeah, but that's the problem. It's such a lower-middle-class toy, innit? Jun 22, 2007

reesetee They're also called that, I believe. But hobby horse is ever so much more elegant, don't you think? ;-) Jun 22, 2007

uselessness Oh! I'd put that on my "It Has a Name?" list, if I had one. I always thought those were just called toy horses with sticks for bodies. Jun 22, 2007

reesetee U, you're *such* a young'un. ;-) Here you go.
Jun 22, 2007

uselessness What is a hobby horse, anyway? Jun 22, 2007

jennarenn Oh, this is the *hobby horse* page? ;) Jun 22, 2007

reesetee I think this whole thread is now irrelevant to hobby horses. ;-) Jun 22, 2007

chained_bear I can't speak to the swashing part, but a buckler is a small round shield used in dagger or swordfighting. As in, sword and buckler.

This is irrelevant to hobby horses though... Jun 22, 2007

jennarenn It already is in wordie history. Check out my conversations list. :) Jun 21, 2007

trivet Academically, I know this to be true, but they're pretty indistinguishable to me. I see pioneer and think covered wagons - even when reading biographical info. I get a lovely mental picture of a 'pioneer in the field of medicine' wearing buckskins and a stethoscope... Jun 21, 2007

uselessness You're right if you're talking about The Pioneers, just like The Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower. But in the lowercase sense, a pioneer is just among the first of a brave few to move into a frontier (again, note lowercase, not The Frontier, which refers to the American west). I think pioneer is a great word with many applications beyond the Oregon Trail.

And you should know by now, I'm all about the derring-do. :-) Jun 21, 2007

trivet Cool! (Always nice to have one's irrational assumptions vindicated...)

Uselessness, in my counterintuitive brain, pioneers came *after* the frontiersmen, explorers, and trappers. More phlegmatic, less derring-do. Jun 21, 2007

reesetee This is going to be one of those pages that goes down in Wordie history. I can just feel it.

Trivet, you're etymologically correct, according to OED--apparently the literal meaning of "swash + buckler" was "one who makes a noise by striking his own or his opponent's shield with his sword." I had no idea a sword was required to buckle one's swash.

So damn...I was looking forward to uselessness wielding his razor-sharp wit to defend the pioneers.... Jun 21, 2007

oroboros Y'all haven't extracted the full measure of pithiness in life iffn you hain't wore a coonskin cap backards!! Jun 21, 2007

uselessness A sword, or bayonet, or perhaps a musket or just a razer-sharp wit. I'm not picky. Heck, I bet people swashbuckled in togas before France was even invented. Jun 21, 2007

trivet I think you need some sort of sword to swashbuckle. A flintlock rifle just doesn't cut the mustard. And a bowie knife doesn't have the necessary panache.

Feathers on a hat are jaunty. Tails are more, um, earthy. Jun 21, 2007

reesetee Look at this! A list is forming itself right here before our eyes! :-)

Why can't one swashbuckle in a coonskin cap? I think they look jaunty. Jun 21, 2007

trivet or a coonskin cap.

(...unless you're Davey Crockett) Jun 21, 2007

uselessness I'm not talking about Laura Ingalls Wilder. I'm talking Lewis and Clark! Teddy Roosevelt! Billy the Kid! Linus Torvalds! Jun 21, 2007

trivet I think it is hard to swashbuckle in a bonnet. Jun 21, 2007

uselessness Don't forget pioneer! Jun 21, 2007

trivet racketeer, privateer, buccaneer, commandeer, musketeer - all very swashbuckle-y... Jun 21, 2007

uselessness The host of a radio show I listen to says that those who support laissez-faire economics should proudly call themselves free marketeers. His co-host disagrees, saying it conjures up too many images of the Mouseketeers, and no one will ever take that name seriously. It's an age-old debate on the show. :-) Jun 21, 2007

reesetee And yet for some reason, that "-eer" construction always puts me in mind of something merry and fun rather than something illegal and secretive. Racketeering, for example, sounds like something the Mouseketeers might have done (with song and dance included, of course). Blame it on Disney.

Though you do have a point, Valse, about bracketeering--a heinous abuse of punctuation, perhaps? Jun 21, 2007

slumry That is funny. I intended someting like "bracket error"--I understand that comments pages break due to incorrect use of brackets, among other things.
But bracketeering is intersting. . .and now my brain is going to electioneering. As I read the definition now, it sounds pretty innocuous, but I had thought the word meant improper influencing of voters at the polls, which one would think would be in indictable offence. Jun 21, 2007

valse Seeing bracketerred makes me think of bracketeering, and now I wonder what that might mean and if someone could be indicted for it. Jun 21, 2007

slumry You bet your booties it's a coinage. They are just starting to roll off my tongue. I am beginning to think word salad. Do you think I should be worried? Jun 21, 2007

reesetee Bracketerred? Sounds like a coinage to me! Jun 21, 2007

slumry Well, who knows. I probably bracketerred or something. I will wait and see what happens. Jun 20, 2007

jennarenn Odd. u has over 1000 comments, and yours only has 300. Jun 20, 2007

slumry That would explain why my own comments list does not come up. It may be just as well. Jun 20, 2007

uselessness You mean it works? Last time I tried to load that page, which was a couple months ago, it freaking crashed my browser. And I tried it like ten times. John apologized, said something about how the really long comments pages break stuff, and that was that. I haven't tried it again since.

You say it's fixed now? Crappy crap crap. Jun 20, 2007

jennarenn Your list of comments goes on *forever*, but I could find them all there, if there was a pressing need. Jun 20, 2007

jennarenn Wait a minute.... Jun 20, 2007

uselessness Just call me the sneaky wittle bunny wabbit. You'll nevah find them! Nevah!! Jun 20, 2007

jennarenn Which drives me slightly nuts. I keep wanting to see a list of all the little uselessness easter eggs(?) hidden within the site. Jun 20, 2007

uselessness It's my whole philosophy. I like leaving nuggets in unlisted words because I imagine that eventually someone will add them and be pleasantly surprised to find something unexpected. Or bewildered by it. It's pretty much all I've done on the site for the past couple months. ;-) Jun 20, 2007

reesetee I think that happens when the first person to add the word subsequently deletes it. The word stays, the lister goes. Jun 20, 2007

slumry Interesting--a term commented on, but not "claimed" until now.
6/20/07 Jun 20, 2007

andrew.simone Then there's
hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half
a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches,
then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with
the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,
the hobby-horse is forgot.' Dec 9, 2006