Monday, 30 November 2020

Spot the Frippet: wattle.

 There are two words that are pronounced wattle.

The first can mean a frame with twigs woven inside it, especially used as a fence or gate:

This one was drawn in the 1400s. The illustration is at Rouen.

or it can describe the dangling fleshy bits sometimes found on the heads of  birds:


turkey. Photo by Paul VanDerWerf

There are at least two different types of wattle tree in Australia and South Africa:


photo by Melburnian

And there are also wattlebirds in Australia and New Zealand.


photo by JJ Harrison This is a Little Wattlebird. The bigger ones have, um, wattles.

If you can't find any of these kinds of wattle, then the other sort of wattle is a word of the British Midlands and means of poor quality. 

That stuff is everywhere.

Spot the Frippet: wattle. The British Midland word I don't know much about, but the other wattle comes from the Old English watol, and is related to wethel, which means wrap.


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