#and date the origin circa mid 1700s

[ultimateinferno]

Where the fuck was that one moment of clarity for research I experienced when I decided to debunk the etymology of French Toast in random fucking Reddit thread?

[defunctfashion]

Mantua | c. 1700 ・・・ The mantua or manteau was a new fashion that arose in the 1680s. Instead of a bodice and skirt cut separately, the mantua hung from the shoulders to the floor (in the manner of dresses of earlier periods) started off as the female version of the men's Banyan, worn for 'undress' wear. Gradually it developed into a draped and pleated dress and eventually evolved into a dress worn looped and draped up over a contrasting petticoat and a stomacher. The mantua-and-stomacher resulted in a high, square neckline in contrast to the broad, off-the-shoulder neckline previously in fashion. The new look was both more modest and covered-up than previous fashions and decidedly fussy, with bows, frills, ribbons, and other trim. The mantua featured elbow-length, cuffed sleeves, and the overskirt was typically drawn back over the hips to expose the petticoat beneath. In the earliest mantuas, the long trained skirt was allowed to trail. From about 1710, it became customary to pin up the train. The construction of the mantua was altered so that once the train was pinned up, the exposed reverse of the train showed the proper face of the fabric or embroidery. One of the earliest extant examples of this, dated to 1710–1720, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collections. By the mid-18th century, the mantua had evolved into a formal version principally worn for court dress. The draping of the overskirt became increasingly stylized, with the back panel of the train almost entirely concealed. The final version of the mantua, circa 1780, bore little resemblance to the original mantuas of nearly a century earlier. Instead of earlier elaborate draperies and folds, the train had evolved into a length of fabric attached to the back of the bodice. (Via Wikipedia) ・・・ #historicalfashion #fashion #mode #moda #historyoffashion #vintagefashion #vintage #defunctfashion #couture #mantua #mantuadress #18thcentury #17thcenturyfashion @lacma #lacma https://www.instagram.com/p/BsrPEBQg_6O/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2if7muk48zzl

[packedwithpackards]

Selected content about the Packards from Grandpa Don Plefka (Harry Ronald Cecora)

This is quoted from his posts on the Packard family line and Packard family mysteries. It has been quoted here in relevant sections and is used here under the fair use exception to US copyright law.

The Packard family line

The surname Packard is French. It means the descendant of Bacard (combat, strong).(Source: New Dictionary of American Family Names by Elsdon C. Smith. New York: Gramercy Publishing Company, 1988). The name Packard appears in English records as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century. The name was well established in East Anglia long before Samuel's birth...In early Norman records is found Ralph, Engeram, Richard, Peter, Geoffrey, and Walter Picard in Normandy from 1180-1196. Then we find a Robert Pichard in England circa 1198; and a John Pikert circa 1274. How and if these early Picards/Pikerts relate to later generations is not known...Richard G. Packard of Mesa, AZ, said "Almost all of the Packards in America descend from Samuel and Elizabeth Packard who came to America in 1638"... George Packard Married Mary Wither (1574 - 1652) and were the parents of Samuel Packard. George Packard (1579?-1623) was a yeoman farmer. He had a farm called "Colman's" in Whitsungrene (Whitsun Green), England. Colmans is now called "Red House." George Packard married Mary Wyther, daughter of Thomas Wither (d. 1595) and Margaret --- his wife. Mary Wither was baptized in 1574 in Woolpit, and died August 19, 1652. Stonham Aspal is in the diocese of Norwich in Norfolk County, England. The will of George Packard was dated December 1, 1623, and he was buried December 14, 1623 in Stonham, Suffolk County, England. Mary's will was dated August 11, 1649 and was proven on August 19, 1652. She mentions her daughters, Mary, Frances Standley; her sons, John and George; and her grandchildren Mary Standley and Margaret Smyth...Richard Packard has given permission for me to publish these photos There is substantial documentation of the Packard Families of Massachusetts. The book "Mayflower Families - Through Five Generations" lists many of them but does not go beyond the mid 1700's. US census reports do not list individual family members by name until the mid 1800's. The Document "Early English Packards" lists records of wills and court documents and parish records back to the year 1311. In his document titled "Samuel Packard 1612 - 1684" Richard states that Samuel was the fourth son and as such would not have inherited land. That was rectified by going to the American colonies where land was there for the taking...Samuel Packard (1612-1684) married Elizabeth (Family unknown) (1614 - 1694) in about 1635 at Stonham, Aspal Parish, Suffolk, England. With their two year old daughter Mary they emigrated to Plymouth Massachusetts Colony in 1638 on the ship Diligent from Ipswich, England, where, according to an article by Karle S. Packard, they were the parents of 13 additional children. 11 were born in Hingham, Mass. and 2 in Weymouth, Mass. before they relocated to Bridgewater, Mass. According to Karl S. Packard...Samuel and his sons were soldiers in King Philip's War, a bloody conflict with the native Americans, under Captain Benjamin Church."

Packard Family Mysteries

"I have given that name [the American Dark Ages] to the period between 1800 and 1849 because the records of the US Census only gives the name of the head of the household and the number of people, male or female, free or slave, in various age groups. The names of wives and children were not recorded. There were no civil birth records or death records. This dearth of information makes research into the lives of people who lived in this era very difficult, if not impossible. Both Shepard L Packard, on my mother's side, and Eliza S Hunt, on my Father's side were born and led their early lives during these "Dark Ages"."

Note: This was originally posted on October 26, 2018 on the main Packed with Packards WordPress blog (it can also be found on the Wayback Machine here). My research is still ongoing, so some conclusions in this piece may change in the future.

© 2018-2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[corkcitylibraries]

New City: a short history of Glanmire

Glanmire is one of many new communities to join the new and expanding Cork City this summer. Here we explore the history of Glanmire and some of the historic buildings in the area.  For more information on the history of Cork City visit our local history website www.corkpastandpresent.ie

Writing in 1837 in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Samuel Lewis described the village of Glanmire as being located to the east of Cork City on the road to Dublin, with the village situated in a picturesque wooded valley on either side of the Glanmire River.  The area was notable for the range of flour mills, along with various paper and flax mills employing many in the vicinity.  Overlooking this abundance of industry were the large residences of affluent Cork merchants and many of these big houses remain in the area to the present day.

 Dunkathel (Dunkettle) House Dunkathel House was designed in the Palladian style by Abraham Hargrave of Cork and built circa 1780 by the wealthy merchant Abraham Morris who was later elected Member of Parliament for County Cork.  Dunkathel House is situated at the mouth of the Glanmire River and overlooks the Lee estuary.  The house was sold in the 1870s to Thomas Wise Gubbins who ran Wises’s Distillery on the North Mall and he lived there until his death in 1904.  The house was passed on to the eldest son Joseph who in turn left it to his mother, five sisters and two brothers.  One of the sisters Kathleen ran the farm producing top quality butter and used one of the rooms in the house as a dark room for developing photos.  The youngest sister Beatrice became a recognised artist with one of her paintings displayed in the Crawford Art Gallery.  She did much of her painting and sketching on the grounds of Dunkathel and remained there until her death in 1944. 

Since there were no heirs in the Gubbins family the property was inherited by a nephew, Geoffrey Norris Russell.  He and his family lived there until they sold it in 2003 to Michael O’Flynn of O’Flynn Construction.  Michael O’Flynn refurbished the property and applied for planning to develop the grounds into a residential and leisure complex that has proven controversial with local residents and is still ongoing.

  Riverstown House Riverstown house was built in the early 1700s and enlarged in the 1730s by Dr. Jemmett Browne, then Dean of Ross and later Bishop of Cork.  The interior is notable for the decorative plasterwork by the renowned stuccodores, the Francini Brothers.  In fact, Dr. C.P. Curran, a historian of 18th century Dublin architecture, sculpture and plasterwork, had casts made of the plasterwork in Riverstown House which were used as copies for the decorative works in Áras an Uachtaráin.  

The house was occupied by the descendants of Browne up until the 1950s and was then left vacant.  It was feared the elaborate plasterwork would deteriorate.  However, the property was purchased by John Dooley in 1965. With the help of the Irish Georgian Society, the house and its rooms were carefully restored and had been open to the public until recent years.

  Lota House‌ Lota House is another example of Palladian architecture overlooking the Lee estuary. It was designed by the Franco-Italian architect Daviso de Arcourt (David Ducart), who also designed the Cork Mayoralty House in Grenville Place which is now part of the Mercy Hospital.  The property was built in 1765 by Robert Rogers on a site that had been occupied by the Galweys, a merchant family, since circa 1400.  The property changed hands during the 19th century.  

From 1837 it was occupied by William Hastings Greene who in turn sold Lota to the Wood family in 1854 who remained there until selling to Patrick Crowley owner of the Long Valley pub in 1922.  The Brothers of Charity acquired the property in a somewhat dilapidated condition in 1938 for £3,000 and it remains in their ownership to the present day.

  Lotabeg‌ This Georgian house was built circa 1800 for Sir Richard Kellet, 1st��Baronet. It was designed by Abraham Hargrave who also designed Dunkathel House. 

It was later occupied by the MP Daniel Callaghan who commissioned George Richard Pain to design the notable Ionic arch, known locally as ‘Callaghan’s Gate’.  Perched atop the arch sits a stone figure of a dog known as ‘the black dog’ that was reputed to have saved Callaghan from drowning in the nearby Lee.  Lotabeg changed hands from the Mahony family in the 19th century to the Donovan family and the house is currently on the market.

  Lotamore‌ A 2-storey late Georgian house built in 1798, Lotamore had several owners. Most notably, the Perrier family who were a merchant family of Hugenot origin and several members of this family became Mayor of Cork during the 1800s. The house underwent different incarnations over the years, from serving as the offices of the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes in the mid 1900s to a 20-room guesthouse.  Changing with the times, since 2017 Lotamore has become a modern and state-of-art fertility clinic.

Lota Lodge (Vienna Woods Hotel) Dating back to circa 1765, Lota Lodge is thought to have been designed again by Davis Duckart in the Regency style for Lord Barrymore as a hunting lodge.  A century later it was owned in 1875 by the Sharman Crawford family.  There was an extensive fire in the premises in 1902 and it was rebuilt the following year. The property was acquired by the Brothers of Charity after the Crawford’s left in 1946 and used as a seminary from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s.  In 1964 Joan Shubuek converted the property into a hotel renaming it ‘Vienna Woods’ having lived in Austria for some years and feeling that there were some similarities between the area and Vienna.  The Fitzgerald family and Michael Magner purchased the hotel in 2006 renaming it ‘The Vienna Woods Country House Hotel’.   It continues to be a leading hotel in Cork today.

Sources 

Historic houses of Glanmire and vicinity / compiled by the Glanmire Heritage Society. Glanmire, Co. Cork : Glanmire Heritage Society, 2011.

A guide to Irish country houses / by Mark Bence-Jones, London : Constable, 1988.

Big Houses of the Northside / Stephen Hunter.  Archive Issue 3 ; 1999

[jackson38toh]

Dilly, dilly, come and be killed

Q: I came across the word “dillies” the other day (I can’t remember where!) and it reminded me that when I was a child in England many years ago, “dilly” was the name for a female duck. I haven’t heard it since, and strangely enough, cannot find “dilly = duck” on the internet! Is this a usage that has entirely disappeared?

A: In the days when people kept domestic ducks, the word “dilly” was more common than it is today. In modern English, it exists only as a colloquial or dialectal usage, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The word began as a call to ducks, the OED says, and consequently “dilly” (along with “dilly-duck”) evolved into “a nursery name for a duck.”

The earliest duck-call example we’ve found appeared in a popular music-hall song first performed in the mid-18th century. The lyrics to the song, originally entitled “Mrs. Bond,” later became a nursery rhyme.

The comic song is about a cook who needs “a duckling or two” for her customers’ dinner. She instructs a servant to call the ducks by crying “Dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, come to be killed,” but when he fails to entice them Mrs. Bond goes to the pond and calls them herself.

The song was introduced in performances of Samuel Foote’s two-act farce The Mayor of Garret (1763), according to The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (2nd ed., 1997), by Iona and Peter Opie. The song doesn’t appear in the published text of the play, but the Opies say it was immediately printed by rival London music publishers.

The song’s oft-repeated refrain is “Dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, come to be killed, / For you must be stuffed and my customers filled!”

A nursery-rhyme version of the song was first published in 1797 in Samuel Arnold’s Juvenile Amusements, according to the Opies, and subsequently appeared in several 19th-century collections of children’s poetry (the wording often varied).

The OED suggests that the evolution of “dilly” from a duck call to the name for a duck was inspired by the nursery rhyme.

But in the meantime, among adults the saying “dilly, dilly, come and be [or “to be”] killed” became a catch-phrase symbolizing a sweet enticement used to lure an unsuspecting victim. It was used this way in early 19th-century political journalism—first in Britain, then in the US and Australia.

For example, a member of Parliament, Robert Thornton, used the catch-phrase in the House of Commons on June 16, 1813, in arguing against an invitation to the East India Company to open its ports to wider trade. He likened the resolution to “the line in Mrs. Bond’s song—’Dilly Dilly Wagtail, come to be killed.’ ”

His remarks were reported on June 17, 1813, in at least two British newspapers, the London Star and the London Chronicle, though the wording differed. A report also appeared in July 1813 in a British periodical, the Satirist: or, Monthly Meteor:

“Mr. R. Thornton, in one of the debates on the East India question, wittily observed, that the invitation to the Company to open their trade reminded him of the child’s song,—’Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed.’ ”

In social commentary, too, the duck call was used to symbolize a lure to the unwary.

An article about “cannibalism” among different elements of society was published in Britain and the US in 1828. The author mentions one class of “cannibals” that “must be nameless” (probably the clergy), who “persuade their prey, like ‘dilly dilly duck,’ ‘to come and be killed’ for the good of his own soul.”  The unsigned article was printed in the New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal (London, July 1828) and the Museum of Foreign Literature and Science (Philadelphia and New York, September 1828).

The OED’s citations for “dilly”—both as a duck call and as a name for a duck—aren’t fully updated and don’t begin until 1831, with an example of Mrs. Bond’s duck call in the nursery rhyme.

But Oxford does have the earliest example we’ve seen for “dilly” used to mean a duck. It’s from a comic poem first published in 1838, in which the eels in Mrs. Bond’s pond eat her baby ducklings.

We’ll expand the OED citation for context: “The tenants of that Eely Place / Had found the way to Pick a dilly.” (From “The Drowning Ducks” by Thomas Hood, with puns on the London street names Ely Place and Piccadilly.)

Was a “dilly” always a female duck, the counterpart to the “drake”? The OED doesn’t say, but in 19th-century British literature that’s generally the case.

In The Boy’s Book of Modern Travel and Adventure (1863), Merideth Johnes uses “her” in referring to a “poor dilly-duck.” R. D. Blackmore’s novel Mary Anerley (first serialized in1879) has a passage in which “coy lady ducks” are later referred to as “tame dilly-ducks.” And Summer in Broadland (1889), a travel book by Henry Montagu Doughty, uses “she” and “her” in reference to an inquisitive “dilly duck.”

So why was “dilly” used as a duck call in the first place? That’s a good question, and we don’t have a clue. The word certainly doesn’t sound like the quacking of a duck.

What’s more, other meanings of “dilly” aren’t related. The adjective “dilly” has been used to mean stupid or foolish, but only since the 1870s and mostly in Australia. In American slang “dilly” has meant delightful or delicious since the early 1900s—a use that inspired the noun use (“it’s a dilly”). The source there is the first syllable of “delightful” and “delicious,” the OED says.

Another similar sounding term, “dilly dally,” is also unrelated, as far as we know. It was recorded in noun form in the 1500s and as a verb in the 1700s. But the OED says it’s probably a repeating variant (“a reduplication with vowel variation”) of the verb “dally” (circa 1300), along the lines of “shilly shally,” “zig-zag,” and other such phrases.

Also unrelated are some uses of “dilly” in nursery rhymes. We’ve found examples dating from 1606 of chants like “fa-la-la lantido dilly,” “trangidowne dilly,” “lankey down dilly,” “daffy-down dilly” (an expansion of “daffodil”), and others.

Perhaps the most familiar of these is an anonymous 17th-century English song that begins, “Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green, / When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen.”  (Early versions used “diddle” instead of “dilly.”)

But getting back to your question about “dilly” in the barnyard, apparently there’s no logic in the words people use to call domestic animals. Such words are “chiefly monosyllabic and dissylabic” and are “generally repeated in groups of three,” according to one 19th-century observer, who added: “This language has but little in common with that used by the animals.”

The writer was H. Carrington Bolton, whose paper “The Language Used in Talking to Domestic Animals” appeared in the March and April 1897 issues of the American Anthropologist.

In a section entitled “Calls to Ducks,” Bolton says that “dilly, dilly” isn’t solely a British usage: “Dilly, dilly is also current in the United States; diddle is reported from Virginia, and widdy from North Carolina.”

It seems that what was true in the 19th century is no longer true now. The Dictionary of American Regional English, whose evidence dates largely from the 20th century, lists “diddle” and “widdy” as calls to ducks and other poultry. But alas, no “dilly.”

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from Blog – Grammarphobia https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2019/03/dilly.html

[jackson38toh]

Why tired writing is hackneyed

Q: You’ve used “hackneyed” several times on your blog to describe tired writing, but you haven’t discussed the origins of the word. Just curious.

A: The usage comes from “hackney,” an old term for a hired horse, one that was often overworked and worn out. The ultimate source, however, was probably a village that supplied horses in medieval England.

As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, “Probably < the name of Hackney, formerly a village in Middlesex (now a borough in London; 1198 as Hakeneia, 1236 as Hakeneye), probably with reference to supply of horses from the surrounding meadows.”

When the term first appeared in its equine sense, spelled hakeney in Middle English, it referred to a horse used for general-purpose riding, as distinct from hunting, racing, cavalry, and so on.

The OED’s first example, written mostly in Latin, is a 1299 entry in Household Accounts From Medieval England (1992), edited by the historian Christopher M. Woolgar:

“In expensis Lakoc cum uno hakeney conducto de Lond’ usque Canterbire pro tapetis cariandis” (“Expenses of Lakoc [an abbey in Wiltshire] for carrying tapestry by hackney from London to Canterbury”).

The first Oxford example for “hackney” as a horse for hire is from Piers Plowman (circa 1378), the allegorical poem by William Langland: “Ac hakeneyes hadde þei none bote hakeneyes to hyre” (“As for hackneys, they had none but hackneys for hire”).

In the late 16th century, the word “hackney” started being used adjectivally to describe an expression or a phrase made “stale or tired through indiscriminate use; overused; banal,” according to the OED.

The first OED example is from A Theological Discourse of the Lamb of God and His Enemies (1590), by the Anglican clergyman Richard Harvey, who refers to “a monstrous and a craftie antichristian practisser” relying on “hackney sillogismes.”

Meanwhile, writers began using “hackney” as a verb meaning to ride a horse. The earliest Oxford citation is from A New Tragicall Comedie of Apius & Virginia (1575), by R. B. (perhaps Richard Bower).

Here a befuddled character named Haphazard, though apparently speaking nonsense, uses the verb figuratively to foretell his execution:

“Hap was hyred to hackney in hempstrid, / In hazard he was of riding on beamestrid” (“Hap was hired to ride a hangman’s rope, / In hazard he was of riding astride a beam”).

The verb was soon being used, often in the passive, to mean to overuse or make too familiar. The OED cites Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 (1598): “So common hackneid in the eyes of men / So stale and cheape to vulgar companie.” (We’ve expanded the citation.)

In the 1600s, the dictionary says, “hackney coach” came to mean a “four-wheeled coach for hire.” Later, “hackney cab” and “hackney carriage” referred to horse-drawn and then motor-driven vehicles to carry passengers for a fee.

In the mid-1700s, people began using the term we use today—“hackneyed”—as an adjective to describe a phrase or subject “made trite, uninteresting, or commonplace through familiarity or overuse; stale, tired; banal,” the OED says.

The dictionary’s first example is from a comment by the critic William Warburton in a 1747 Shakespearean anthology he edited: “For the much-used hacknied metaphors being now very imperfectly known, great care is required not to act in this case temerariously.”

The most recent Oxford example is from Mortal Rituals (2013), Matt J. Rossano’s book about the survivors of a 1972 Uruguayan Air Force crash: “The hackneyed phrase there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’ does have some truth to it.”

As for the short form “hack,” it evolved similarly. Here are the earliest OED dates for some of its senses: horse for hire (1571), driver of a hackney carriage (1661), hireling (1699), trite writing (1710), trite or dull (1759), journalistic drudge (1798), writer of unoriginal work (1927).

Finally, we should mention that the modern “hackney horse” isn’t a worn-out horse for hire. It’s a high-stepping carriage horse popular in harness events. The Hackney Horse Society’s stud book has records for the breed dating back to 1755.

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[jackson38toh]

A fork in the road

Q: Your recent discussion of “forked tongue” prompts this question. The far eastern end of Long Island splits into the North Fork and South Fork, but shouldn’t that really be North Tine and South Tine?

A: It may seem a bit odd, but when a road or an island or a river splits in two—that is, when it “forks”—each direction is generally called a “fork,” not a “tine.”

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the geographical sense of “fork” as “the place where something divides into branches” as well as “one of the branches into which something forks.”

This all began back in Anglo-Saxon times, when forca, the Old English spelling of the noun “fork,” was borrowed from furca, Latin for a two-pronged tool like a hay-fork or yoke.

The English word originally meant “an implement, chiefly agricultural, consisting of a long straight handle, furnished at the end with two or more prongs or tines, and used for carrying, digging, lifting, or throwing,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The earliest OED example is from the Homilies of the Benedictine abbot Ælfric of Eynsham (circa 1000):

“Ða cwelleras … wið-ufan mid heora forcum hine ðydon.” (“The executioners … pierced him from above with their forks”). The passage, using the plural forcum, describes the death of St. Lawrence.

The original “pitchfork” (pic-forcken in early Middle English) appeared in Layamon’s Brut, a poem written sometime before 1200, according to the Middle English Dictionary, published by the University of Michigan.

Later, the OED says, “fork” was used for an object “having two (or more) branches,” such as a “stake, staff, or stick with a forked end.” These forks were for propping up a vine or tree (a use first recorded in 1389), or for resting a musket (1591) or a fishing rod (1726).

Interestingly, “fork” didn’t come to the table until four and a half centuries after its first appearance in English.

In this sense, the OED says, the word means “an instrument with two, three, or four prongs, used for holding the food while it is being cut, for conveying it to the mouth, and for other purposes at table or in cooking.”

The OED’s earliest mention is from a will recorded in 1463: “I beqwethe to Davn John Kertelynge my silvir forke for grene gyngour” (“I bequeath to Davin John Kerteling my silver fork for green ginger”). The document was first published in 1850 in Wills and Inventories From the Registers of the Commissary of Bury St. Edmunds, edited by Samuel Tymms.

Early table forks, according to historians, generally had two prongs, as with this 17th-century English fork from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Even into the 19th century, illustrations of table scenes showed people eating with two-pronged forks, as in this 1830s print from the British Museum.

So it’s not surprising that a “fork” in its geographical sense meant something that split into two parts.

The OED doesn’t discuss the use of “fork” in reference to land bodies that divide (like Long Island, which splits into two peninsulas at Riverhead, NY).

This kind of “fork” originally meant the point where a river divides in two or where two rivers join, a sense first recorded in the late 17th century.

The earliest citation in the OED, dated 1692, refers to a location “in the forks of Gunpowder River,” a tidal inlet on Chesapeake Bay. (The quotation was printed in a 1906 issue of the Maryland Historical Magazine.)

In subsequent OED citations, “fork” is used both for the division and for each branch of a waterway: “the forke of the brooke” (circa 1700); “the big fork of said river” (1753); “the fork of the Nebraska” (now the Platte River, 1837); “the north and south forks” (1839); “the east fork of the Salmon River” (1877).

By the mid-19th century, these same usages were being applied to roads—the place where a roadway splits as well as each route taken.

Washington Irving, the OED says, was the first to use the phrase “a fork in the road,” in his Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost (1855).

And a British travel writer and avid cyclist, Charles Howard, was the first known to use “fork” for a single branch of a road that “forks”:

“Here take the right hand fork” (from The Roads of England and Wales, 1883; the phrases “left hand fork” and “right hand fork” appear a dozen or more times in the book).

Although “fork” is now the usual term for each branch when a road, a waterway, or an island splits, the word “tine” does occasionally show up.

The OED has one example, from Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, an 1876 book by the explorer Richard Francis Burton: “We reached a shallow fork, one tine of which … comes from the Congo Grande.”

More to the point, Wikipedia’s “North Fork (Long Island)” entry says: “At Riverhead proper, Long Island splits into two tines, hence the designations of The South Fork and The North Fork.” However, Wikipedia’s “South Fork” entry is “tine”-less. And none of the six standard dictionaries we’ve checked include this sense of “tine.”

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Email Address

/* Custom functionality for safari and IE */ (function( d ) { // In case the placeholder functionality is available we remove labels if ( ( ‘placeholder’ in d.createElement( ‘input’ ) ) ) { var label = d.querySelector( ‘label[for=subscribe-field-476]’ ); label.style.clip = ‘rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px)’; label.style.position = ‘absolute’; label.style.height = ‘1px’; label.style.width = ‘1px’; label.style.overflow = ‘hidden’; }

// Make sure the email value is filled in before allowing submit var form = d.getElementById(‘subscribe-blog-476’), input = d.getElementById(‘subscribe-field-476’), handler = function( event ) { if ( ” === input.value ) { input.focus();

if ( event.preventDefault ){ event.preventDefault(); }

return false; } };

if ( window.addEventListener ) { form.addEventListener( ‘submit’, handler, false ); } else { form.attachEvent( ‘onsubmit’, handler ); } })( document );

from Blog – Grammarphobia https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2018/09/fork.html