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Tuesday 11 June 2013

Thing To Do Today, Possibly: be foxy.

There are so many ways to be a fox.

For a lady then mascara, a feather boa, and an inviting look is enough, but any person of any age or sex who's being cunning is being foxy

A time-traveller from several hundred years ago can be a fox simply by being drunk.

A barrel of beer (The Word Den does have some very odd readers)is foxed when it's gone sour; a fish is foxed when it's stupefied; a horse is foxed when it's had its ears trimmed; a book is foxed when its pages are marked with brown spots; and a shoe is foxed when it's had its uppers repaired, possibly with decorative strips of leather.

If you're not a barrel of beer, a fish, a horse, a book or a shoe, then you can always do an Australian fox, which will mean either to pursue someone stealthily, or to chase and retrieve a ball.

I think I'll go with the chasing-a-ball option, myself.

Thing To Do Today. Possibly: be foxy. This word has been the same for about a thousand years. It's related to the Sanskrit word puccha, which means tail.

Most of the fox terms are to do with a fox's cunning or its colour. The term for drunkenness is probably something to do with the colour of a drunkard's nose.

4 comments:

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  2. Sally! I thought I read "something to do with the colour of a fox's nose," which made me think "But a fox's nose is black, isn't it?" So off I went looking at pictures of foxes' noses (including Megan Fox, who kept appearing in the searches, though I wasn't complaining) and yes, I confirmed it: a fox's nose is indeed black. So I thought: "Oooh, she must have meant a fox's snout!", quickly followed by "Hang on. The snout is red, or red and white. And anyway, the snout is just same colour as the fox generally. What on Earth is the Pruester talking about?"

    I was just coming back here to register my dismay in the comment box when I read it again. "Oh yeah. She wrote 'drunkard's nose'."

    And so off I toddle, back to my pictures of the decidedly foxy Megan Fox ...

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    Replies
    1. I'm glad to have pointed you in the direction of a foxy Fox, Ed.

      Come to think of it, there's an Ed(ward) Fox, too: personally, he's more my type.



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    2. Oh yeah ... I know him! He's getting on a bit now though.

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