With apologies to the Travelling Spouse for butting into her business, but because I know most of you have been wondering about the word "Lychgate"...The picture at the top of this post is a lychgate. This particular one is in Wales. A lychgate (not Lynchgate - that's a whole 'nother post, I'll bet) is a covered gate which enters into a graveyard, specifically into a church graveyard. Literally, "corpse gate".
Since several of you have asked, the word "lych" is from the Old English (actually Saxon; several of our really good words have survived from the Saxon. Ahem) and means "corpse". It is meant to be an adjective/prefix for things having to do with a corpse. Our friend Wally Wikipedia gives such examples as lych bell (a hand-held bell rung in front of a corpse during a funeral procession); lych way (the path down which a corpse is carried to its resting place); and lych-'Donald's (a place where people eat dead meat.) Perhaps this last was not on Wikipedia. I forget.
I want to quickly explain that this word only refers to the entrance to a BRITISH churchyard. In the U.S., we refer to cemetery gates as "gates"; Paths as "paths"; and hamburger places as "junk food joints". But you knew that. To my knowledge, we don't ring bells in front of corpses, being considerably more civilized than your average barbarian Brit who does that and even worse...
I'll not burden you with the Welsh translation of the Saxon-cum-English word (since it sounds filthy) though I am tempted to honor Sage by trying to come up with the Cornish equivilent. It is probably on a sign somewhere in Cornwall already, though. In Irish (yes, I know this is not British) it is called marbhan geata. (Who knew there were so many languages in the UK? And I haven't scratched the surface. Nor will I try.)
Now, wasn't that more interesting than me being unmetricated?
Next: "Different to vs. different than." Holy Huckabee.
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Photo of the day: Dean Vernon Wormer:
