"duff"

Jan. 19th, 2016 10:13 am
marnanel: (Default)
"Duff" was originally an alternative pronunciation of "dough" (cf "enough").

So it also came to mean a kind of pudding, "plum duff". And hence you could be "up the duff" if you were pregnant, just as you might "have a bun in the oven".

From the sense of "dough" it also came to mean flour, and then to chaff, or useless stuff. Hence "duff" meaning useless or broken.
marnanel: (Default)
After a discussion at the party meeting last night I went and looked up the sense development of the word "cadre".

1. In socialist use it means a person who has learned to take on any work necessary (within a political team), so that the loss of any one member damages the team less.
2. And this comes from an earlier use of the word to mean a whole team of socialists-- a chapter, a cell group.
3. And that comes from an earlier use of the word to mean the structure used to organise an army.
4. And that comes from the French word for a frame.
5. And that comes from the Latin "quadrum", a thing with four sides.

So a square thing has become a well-rounded individual.

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