The Missing H

After a break to campaign for a local Library Board of Trustees seat (which I did not win... lost by 180 votes to the Town Custodian... oh! the pain of it!) I'm back.

For some reason, the derivation of peculiar word-working terms has stuck in my head. While (or whilst, if you are British) reading a book on the history of the English Language, I came across Cannel, a version of Channel. My friendly Online Etymology Dictionary says of Channel:

c.1300, "bed of running water," from O.Fr. chanel, from L. canalis "groove, channel, waterpipe"

Of course I jumped to the conclusion that the notorious In-Cannel and Out-Cannel gouges (sometimes even spelled with one N) should really be called In-Channel or even In-Chanel gouges. At least this would be true if the French had their way. What happened to the H? Were did the extra N come from?

Clearly, this momentous discovery requires a special page devoted to the Weird Words of Word-Working.

Do you have any Weird Words of Wood-Working that come to mind? Send them in and the first 100 entries will receive a free pass to the Toolemera Blog, good on Weekends only.

Till next
Gary

Comments

[Stephen Shepherd]

Swarf

[Gary Roberts]

Swarf: derived from Middle English, Old English, Old Norse, High German. All this for one word...

Origin: 1175–1225; ME swerven (v.); OE sweorfan to rub, file; c. D zwerven to rove, OHG swerban, ON sverfa to file, Goth afswairban to wipe off

Origin: 1560–70; ON svarf, akin to sverfa to file, or continuing OE geswearf, gesweorf

[Stephen Shepherd]

Spelk

[joel]

Except - the meaning is incorrect. In Sheffield the wood "cannel" means "bevel" That is to say when I talk to Ray Iles he will say things like" "I harden the plane irons, and then figure out which side is slightly concave and then I grind the cannel on the other side"
In-cannel means that the bevel is on the inside. Out-cannel means the bevel is on the outside.

While it is possible that there is a missing "H" somewhere there is no evidence in the meaning of the word that there is. What does the OED say?

[Gary Roberts]

The venerable OED says:

1. (form canel) The natural bed of a stream of water; a water-course. Obs. Now CHANNEL.

2. (forms canel, cannel) The gutter or surface water-course in a street, or by a road. This sense still survives as KENNEL n.2, q.v. (The 18th c. spelling cannal was app. influenced by canal.)
c1380 WYCLIF Serm. Sel. Wks. II. 335 {Th}ei grutchiden a{ygh}ens {th}is water, and drunken podel water of {th}e canel. c1450 LONELICH Grail xxxix. 244 Is likned to a flood..that trowbled as a kanel schal be. c1440 Promp. Parv. 60/2 Canel, or chanelle [H. in the weye, P. in the strete], canalis [P. aquagium]. 1533 MORE Apol. xxxii. Wks. 896/1 They wyll..knele downe in the kanel and make their praiers in the open stretes. 1563 Homilies II. Gluttony, etc. (1859) 303 They lie stinking in our bodies, as in a lothsome sink or canell. 1666 PEPYS Diary 6 Sept., It was pretty to see how hard the women did work in the cannells, sweeping of water. 1756 C. LUCAS Ess. Waters I. 83 The common cannals in the streets.

From Websters:

Main Entry: cannel
Variant(s): or canel
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: Middle English canel, from Old French canele, from Medieval Latin canella

Main Entry: ca·nel·la
Function: noun
Etymology: Medieval Latin, diminutive of Latin canna reed; from the shape of the rolls of prepared bark

So... The vagaries of pronunciation and usage change over time, as does the spelling of a particular word. My guess is that in today's usage in some parts of the world, Cannel is now used to describe the bevel (being inside or outside) that does the cutting of the gutter like shape.

[Gary Roberts]

As for Spelk...

From Websters:

Main Entry: spelk
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: Middle English spelke, from Old English spelc, spilc splint; akin to Old Norse spjalk splint, Middle Dutch spalke chip, Welsh fflochen splinter, Armenian p'elk long piece of wood and probably to Old High German spaltan split

From OED:
A splinter or chip; a small strip of wood.
c1440 Promp. Parv. 468/1 Spelke, fissula. 1623 MARKHAM Country Housew. Gard. x, The lesse your Spelkes are, the lesse is the waste of your hony, and the more easily will they draw, when you take your Bees. 1788- in northern glossaries. 1894 Rev. Reviews Sept. 256 A belated attempt to extract a small spelk from the hand of the Irish peasant. 1899 R. WALLACE Schoolmaster 26 A schoolboy carefully gathered up the larger ‘spelks’ of the tram of the broken vehicle.

3. A thatching-rod; = SPAR n.4
1563 Richmond Wills (Surtees) 169, iij. spelks and iij. carres, xixd. 1578 Ibid. 282 Woodd and bords..with stangs, hots, and cares, and spelks and latts. 1712 in Trans. Cumbld. & Westm. Archæol. Soc. (N.S.) III. 108 For 184 bottles of thatch... For spelks two hundred and twenty seven. 1781 J. HUTTON Tour to Caves (ed. 2) Gloss. 96 Spelks, small sticks to fix on thatch with. 1828- in Yorkshire and Lancs. glossaries, etc.

4. In various uses: (see quots.).
1828 CARR Craven Gloss., Spelk,..a spoke of a wheel. 1829 BROCKETT N.C. Gloss. (ed. 2), Spelk, a little, slender creature; used as a term of reproach. 1875 KNIGHT Dict. Mech. 2264/1 Spelk,..a rod in a loom.

Add: [2.] b. A type of woven basket made of narrow strips of wood or ‘spelks’.
[1926 FITZRANDOLPH & HAY Rural Industries Eng. & Wales I. vii. 97 The tools used and the methods of making oak-spelk baskets are nearly the same in all districts.] 1949 K. S. WOODS Rural Crafts Eng. viii. 142 The baskets have various names in different districts{em}scuttles or sculls, spelks, skips, or whiskets. 1953 A. JOBSON Househ. & Country Crafts xviii. 171 Besides besoms, wiskets (swills, spelks, slops or skips elsewhere, to which might be added Sussex trugs), are made in this Wyre Hill yard. 1968 J. ARNOLD Shell Bk. Country Crafts 260 The Furness ‘spelk’ is made with rent oak strips or bands, rendered pliable by a period of boiling.

[joel]

" My guess is that in today's usage in some parts of the world, Cannel is now used to describe the bevel (being inside or outside) that does the cutting of the gutter like shape."

But the term is used for straight iron not just gouges.
I think however this shows a major flaw in the OED which I have seen when it comes to technical terms. The OED relies on written citations found by investigators. "Cannel" in the Sheffield sense won't likely be found in literature as you need to be an native to know the lingo and the natives didn't write much, or the writing that was done is technical and outside the normal sphere of literary research material.
Notice that the OED doesn't link the entry to the bevel on a chisel or gouge. And of course we know that up until recently (1800 or so) spelling was in flux and there are many regional veriations on meaning, derivation, and pronunciation.
So I still don't agree

[Gary Roberts]

One of the huge problems in researching the derivation of any English word is... the English Language. A word or term can be shown to have taken on new or tangential meanings over the span of even 50 years, but often no one knows why or how it happened.

If you look at the linguistic roots of this word, it's clear that some of it's roots lie in medieval Latin. At some point, the term became a common expression for a cutting edge. The English language is nothing if not flexible and adaptive in it's development. Go figure.