Posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 16:11:01
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming, posted by shar on February 3, 2004, at 14:41:28
Thank you, Shar. You know, I have no idea how that word made it into my vocabulary!! I don't know that I have ever used it before. And probably, had I not ventured into that little vacuum cleaning filter rantlet (sorry Racer, I really need to reserve the right to rant, too--but mine will be in small-case letters, as you, m'dear are the queen of the Rant with a capital R, Racer), who knows if I might ever in my lifetime would have used the word crenelations!! And to think it was in there, in my head somewhere, waiting to come out and I had no idea it was in there and poof! I do a little vacuum cleaner rant and out comes crenelations!! How bizarre language is that way, isn't it?
But when reading your post, I suddenly felt a clutch of self consciousness, thinking, "did I use the word appropriately?" After all, I really didn't know for sure what it meant. So, I went and looked it up and the official definitions seem to be
1) a battlement, like in the crenelated tops of fortified castles--I hope this comes out right---
__HH__HH__HH__HH__HH__HH__
and 2)indentations
Mostly it seems to refer to the architectural meaning, both in the medeival sense of fortresses, but also in modern architecture, where there are echoes of the old castle-like indentations on all kinds of buildings.
But further searches on the internet yielded uses of the word to refer to geological crenelations, like in the folds and indentations of mountains. There was even a reference to crenelations that the NASA scientists saw in some images from Mars! And, google images yielded a picture of an elephant jaw with crenellations.
It is a great word, isn't it?
poster:noa
thread:308191
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20031122/msgs/308963.html