Spot the Frippet: string.

 Brown paper packages tired up with string...

...although actually it's sticky tape, usually, nowadays, isn't it. 

Ah well.

But still, many thing come in strings. Fairy lights (or perhaps they should be angel lights at Christmas). 

photo by Sardaka

Beads come on them. People sometimes let off a string of curses (often described as colourful, which is odd, when you come to think about it). Some green beans have strings that needed to be cut away before cooking:

photo by Simon Thomas

 and meat, too, can be stringy. Violins and guitars have strings: 

illustrations by Lardyfatboy, Wayne Rogers, Rama, Martin Moller, Gringer, Musik-och teatermuseet and others

and bags are sometimes made entirely of them. 

There are neckties made out of string. The skirting board that goes up the side of a staircase is a stringboard.

It is said by some very clever people that the whole universe is made up of very tiny strings, strings so small in fact that if one of them was the height of a man then an atom at the same scale would be the size of a galaxy. 

Yes, that's small. 

Still, to make up for their lack of bulk they are said to live in a frankly incomprehensible number of dimensions.

Most relationships come with strings attached. These are invisible, but still quite easily spotted.

There are in fact so many strings everywhere that I'm beginning to wonder at our ability to walk about without strangling ourselves.

But, luckily, mostly we do.

Spot the Frippet: string. This word was streng in Old English. Interestingly, it's connected to the word strong.