A lot of talk at the moment about people who deny there is a climate problem. These people seem to be called deniers.
Now when I was a lad denier had something to do with stockings, things that ladies wore on their legs which stopped somewhere near the top. Much of the fun of teenage years was wondering just how far they really go, and thoughts of wondering how to find out. (Jiving in full skirts helped on that score but as the partner of a lady with whom I excelled at the art, but only with her, I was the only male in the room who didnât get the full benefit)
Now all the fun is being taken out of that delicious memory by the insistance of many misusing denier. So, shouldnât people who deny, be called denyers?
Yes - I think the technical term for this is a homonym or homograph (not sure which applies when the pronunciation is different) - a word with two different meanings, such as âbarkâ - the sound a dog makes but also the outer skin of a tree.
Denier (a person who denies) is obviously derived from the verb âto denyâ, whereas denier in the stocking sense is presumably of French or Latin origin.
Denier in the stockings sense, as Toryroo pointed out, has the stress in the first syllable. Denier is the weight of the yarn and indicates the thickness of the fabric that your hosiery is made from. The thickness of the yarn indicates the transparency of the hosiery. The higher the denier number, the thicker the fabric and the more opaque the garment looks.
Stockings are economical because you need replace only one leg at a time when a âladderâ occurred. For naughty boys that means a running tear in the stocking, not an invitation. In the old days, stockings were if silk. During WWII girls sought parachute silk to augment their hosiery. Fun times.
Of course this homo phone/glyph/nym thing can be pushed to extremes.
For instance is an elderly stockman considering the impact of a pending storm on his gelded ram out in the field wondering whether the wether will weather the weather or whether the wether will wither?
I knew already, because I looked it all up before making the comment.
Iâm quite sure it wasnât only naughty boys, it was a naughty girl who told me about the song title âStairway to Heavenâ, oh how innocent it was in the '50s, before the '60s came along with the pill and threw (another homowhatsit) caution to the winds, and the only brake (another) on promiscuity was the invention of tights.
Aaahh, tights! Another trick to part the consumer from more money. Ladder in one leg - two for the bin. Friend of mine suggested cutting off damaged legs and wearing two tops with two good legs. A leg too far for me.
I have cut calf-length socks above the ankle where Iâve got a potato in the foot - my left heel seems particularly abrasive. Seems a waste of +/- 65% of a sock.
The idea is to wear a cut-off above summer ankle sox. I havenât tried it yet.
