DREG

[technomc]

Hi there Viral...

I know this word is accepted...but should dregs be considered?

I've never had a single dreg in the bottom of my coffee cup...there has always been more than one....

{reminder to self: must by new filters for coffee machine...}

[Binkie]

I could have sworn that there had been a discussion about this, so I happily entered "dregs", only to have it rejected. Maybe it was "lees" that I was thinking of. (Oops.......of which I was thinking.)

[biggerbirdbrain]

I tried thinking too, after also trying dregs -- but then I got a bloody horrid headache and went to bed! 

[Alan W]

Since I've posted about crema, I suppose I should give equal time to the other end of the coffee.

You did suggest dregs before, T. In my reply , I concluded that dreg is used in the singular quite often, so I didn't feel dregs should be allowed (if you can bear with me posting a quote that includes a quote that includes a quote):

It's true that some dictionaries these days list dregs only, not dreg. But many others do list dreg, while noting that it's usually used in the plural. Usually, of course, is not the same as always.

I don't think it's completely comparable with lees. When I accepted Bobbi's suggestion of that word last year, I said:

Yes, "lees" seems like it should be allowed. It is apparently the plural of a long-disused word "lee", meaning the same thing. But already in Shakespeare's time "lees" was being used as if it were the singular word:

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

Of course, there's another word "lee", meaning the sheltered side, but this is completely unrelated. So, I can't see why "lees" shouldn't be added.

I don't think anyone construes dregs as a singular word. Shakespeare in fact used the singular form of the word: "What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?" (Troilus and Cressida). And many other writers since then have used dreg:

• "but one dreg of shame" - Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
• "if you have not a dreg of passion in you" - John Buchan, Salute to Adventurers
• "a brandy bottle with only a dreg of spirit in it" - Rider Haggard, Finished
• "Every atom and dreg of it!" - Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
• "shyly ate their apple-sauce to the last dreg" - Sinclair Lewis, The Innocents

And it continues to be used, generally in a figurative sense. For example, a 1992 biography of Dustin Hoffman, by Ronald Bergan: "His main companion is the pathetic dreg of society, Ratso Rizzo." And Enoch Powell in Reflections of a Statesman: "Grenada was the last tiny but bitter dreg in the constitutional cup which the United Kingdom has drained in the past thirty-five years".

So, I don't think dregs is an open-and-shut case, but I'd be happy to discuss it further.

As I suggested then, I'm happy to discuss it further.

[technomc]

I did do a search on dregs before i brought it up again, because i thought it had been discussed before, but nothing came up....

Deja vu....

Well i'm all for it..so to speak...hate them in my coffee though!

I can't imagine anyone using the singular...

Thanks for looking though Viral...

[rogue_mother]

but nothing came up

T, I have discovered that it makes a difference where you are in the forum when you do your search. It seems that the best results are arrived at when you at the forum's home page when you do the search. Otherwise the search will be restricted to the category you are in if you are at the category level, or only within a thread if you are inside the thread.

[technomc]

Thank you RM, i did know that, and was there when i tried it...but to no avail...Now i'm looking for the snowflake website!!!

[birdy]

Snowflake site:  www.popularfront.com/snowdays

There have been over 500 people on at a time lately!  I haven't been on as often because my imagination has crashed.  But I still make a few every few days.

[technomc]

Thanks Birdy....