(Untitled)

[wwidsith]

Did you ever wish there was a word for the gap between the bed and the wall?  Turns out there is: it's called the ruelle.  Personally, I find it comforting to push my face into the ruelle when I can't sleep.  I think there are a couple of paperbacks down there somewhere too. . .

Anyway, can't stop - I'm off to get a Polish haircut.

Comments

[hobnobofjoy]

That really sounds like it's from The Meaning of Liff!

I like it...

[desayuno_ingles]

Oh My God it makes me happy to have you on my Friend's List! So I guess we know now that you have the wall side of the bed.

[wwidsith]

Haha, thanks! I think I may start doing a word of the week....more excuses not to do proper work..

[desayuno_ingles]

Oh, yes please! I get a word of the day from Merriam-Webster (m-w.com) which includes etymology.

[muckefuck]

I discovered that word about five years ago and simply love it. In fact, I used it just last weekend when monshu and I were moving the sofabed into place. The context was something like, "Oh, so you're going to leave a larger ruelle between it and the windows?"

[wwidsith]

I'm very impressed! Where did you learn it? I came across it in Madame Bovary...am so delighted.

[muckefuck]

A half-hour of searching for the original posts (damn pre-indexed entries!) turned up nothing, so here is the tale as I recall it:

A good friend was undergoing a lengthy convalescence after a life-threatening operation. I was visiting him two or three times a week in the hospital where he often had other visitors. We joked with him once that it was like those receptions that sovereigns would have at their bedside and, being language geeks, we of course had to find out what they were called.

Levee is the usual term, but it refers specifically to a morning reception, and these gatherings were always in the evening. It took me an embarrassingly long period of time to figure out the corresponding word would be couchee, but in the process I came across ruelle because, in addition to the meaning you gave, it's also a synonym for levee. When I found it, I had the same sense of joy you did at finding out what to call something you'd always wanted a name for.

[muckefuck]

Oh, and I don't know how "Polish haircut" sounds to Brit ears, but to these American auricles of mine, it sounds like a reference to a Dutch rub or some sort of inadvertent head injury.

[desayuno_ingles]

All it reminded me of was the Polish n'hoods of Brooklyn (and the recent references to Polish hip-hop in the memoir Love Is a Mix Tape and that my boyfriend (half-Mexican) just said, "The Polish are the Mexicans of Europe".

[wwidsith]

It definitely sounds like some kind of euphemism...I'm not sure for what exactly..

[rag_and_bone]

appropriate that it also means a gathering for books/literary discussions, considering that's where you store your paperbacks...