I put a spell on you...

[venta]

Gosh. It's ages since we've had one of these. Words I use which no one else knows...

[Poll #1724258]

A perfectly respectable definition can be found here.

[Poll #1724259]

Edit: supplementary question. If it didn't mean what you thought, what did you think it meant?

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I think it's related to 'spillikins', which is a splendid word.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Round these parts that's called a "skelf".

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

We called 'em 'spells'.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Where, if you'll pardon me asking, are those parts? I don't recognise the bridge...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm familiar with that too, though I say spelk :)

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Central Scotland. (The bridge is the Forth Bridge.)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Skelb, scowe, splice... Lots of words for it! I didn't know skelf, but I do know skelb and spelk.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I guessed right, though context helps lots. Was guessing would be cognate with Yiddish shpilke "pin". I assume this is so.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aha.

Are you a native of those parts? I'd always assumed you were from a more, er, penguiny sort of area.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

That's like a little spill? I've never really met "spill" in that sense outside the school chemistry lab.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. The dictionary I linked to reckons:

[from Old English spelc, spilc surgical splint; related to Old Norse spelkur splints]

I know absolutely nothing about Yiddish derivation, though, and didn't know the word shpilke.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Presumably - I only know it as a parlour game (the same as Jackstraws, or Pick-up-Sticks).

We had spills at home for fire lighting and such - though they lived next to the gas fire. Er... maybe there was a period when the ignition was busted or something? I have no idea.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I guess so - I've also never really heard spill, in this context, outside a science lab, although I sometimes read it in historical novels where taper might do. But spillikins is what I called 'pick up sticks' for years until I heard it had another name. Dictionary seems to confirm that it's related to spilc.

[venta.livejournal.com]

No, I've never heard skelf either and I like it! Your scots dictionary reckons it's also "a sliver", or can be used for a thin person which is exactly what it sounds like.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

OED sa: Old English spelc (also spilc), = West Flemish spelke (De Bo), Norwegian spjelk, Icelandic spelka, â spjalk, related to Middle Dutch spalke (Kilian spalcke), spalc (Dutch spalk), Low German spalke, spalk splinter, chip

[venta.livejournal.com]

though context helps lots

Yes :) I did consider making the sentence "Do you have a spelk in your hand?" which is a perfectly valid question but gives far fewer clues. There are, after all, not many things one legitimately and regularly has in one's finger.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. I can only consult the OED in dead-tree format when I get home :)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I figured that "pin" wasn't likely so thought it'd either be "stitch" "piercing" or most likely "splinter"

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

The joys of academia :)

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I recognised the bridge :) (I lived in Gateshead for a number of years, and occasionally ventured further north)

[venta.livejournal.com]

In that case you've lived far enough north to get spelks in your fingers!

Then again, maybe you started off so amazingly south that you'd take longer than usual to get acclimatised :)

[zotz]

Ah. Yes. I never heard spelk, but I was sure there was something similar I'd forgotten. That was it.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Well known in Galloway.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I adore your icon. Though I preferred the road bridge. Coming at it from the north, it looms up between the hills, appearing and disappearing behind them like some kind of ominous giant monster peeking out at you until suddenly you come out from the hills and there it is, looming above you.

...I was an odd child...

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Possibly so :)

Besides which, there were considerably more Southerners round the office than cleavable pieces of wood.

[lnr]

I've come across that, though it's not one I've used. I guessed spelk from that and context.

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Spills: thin strips of wood, about quarter inch wide and 6-8ins long, in various colours, kept in a spill jar in the hearth in the days of coal fires so that smokers could light cigarettes/pipes without striking a match. Also used to light candles/oil lamps/gas mantles (all of which we had when I was a tiddler).

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

"Do you have a spelk in your finger?"

I guessed correctly from this, but was secretly hoping it would turn out to mean "miniature laser blaster".

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

It turns out I could guess, despite my claim to the contrary.

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

The word suggested something that was pointy but dull, so a splinter was my first thought, with a sort of pain a second.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

My favourite, in spite of its bad name, is the Tay rail bridge, because of the way it curves round to let you see where you came from :)

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Odd, I think of this word as one I encountered in America first, rather than Newcastle.

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

'Spalk' (noun) in Dutch these days means 'splint' (noun)

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I was going to say that! My (Fife) family all talk about skelfs (among other words which get funny looks down here).

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I am now having an almost overwhelming urge to reread William Topaz McGonagall's finest work on The Tay Bridge Disaster :)

[metame.livejournal.com]

supplementary question. If it didn't mean what you thought, what did you think it meant?

An Elven Spork. Clearly.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

I had a moment of confusing it with spelt (as in wheat, grains type context). The context made it a lot clearer.