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General Category => Words => Topic started by: mkenuk on June 20, 2020, 07:12:30 PM

Title: caboose -common?
Post by: mkenuk on June 20, 2020, 07:12:30 PM
Having found 96 of the 97 common words in scoreboard, I was denied a rosette by caboose!!!!

I have only one thing to say! - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

 >:D >:D >:D

Sorry, Linda, This icon is not demonic enough!!

It was played by only 58 (from 327).

The game yielded only four rosettes (plus my honorary one which I award myself whenever I'm denied a rosette by a word which (imvho) should be classed as rare).



 
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Linda on June 20, 2020, 07:45:15 PM
Quote
Sorry, Linda, This icon is not demonic enough!!

I know!  That is our point.  The old version demon was cute but demonic.  The new one looks like a grinning idiot!  >:(
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: mkenuk on June 20, 2020, 08:25:01 PM
Ah, now I see.
Yes. I fully support your campaign!!
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Alan W on June 20, 2020, 08:32:28 PM
Is that better?
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Linda on June 20, 2020, 09:11:46 PM
Not really!  Where is the old, lovely demon, Alan?
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Alan W on June 20, 2020, 10:35:40 PM
Is this the one you're after?  >:D >:D >:D
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Linda on June 20, 2020, 10:41:58 PM
That's more like it!  Thanks, Alan, you've made my day ... doesn't take much, obviously!  >:D

I did have my doubts that he wasn't quite the same old demon but Pen thinks he is and, on closer inspection, I agree.  Will put him to good use!!  >:D >:D
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Calilasseia on June 24, 2020, 06:37:35 PM
Meanwhile ... even though it's probably restricted to American usage, I'm familiar with the word caboose being used to describe a guard's van type unit of railway rolling stock.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Alan W on September 07, 2020, 05:13:23 PM
I'm not convinced that caboose should cease to be counted as a common word. I feel most players, wherever they are, would have heard of the word. The reason it was played by only about one in six of the players in the recent puzzle is probably partly because it's a tricky word to think of.

It has a number of dated and otherwise obscure meanings, but the main one is for a carriage occupied by crew members at the end of a train. As Cal says, the term guard's van is the roughly equivalent term outside North America. But in America or elsewhere, the word is quite likely to be used in a broader sense, often for something going behind other things, such as a sports team that's trailing its competition or a person's backside.

And then there's the classic children's book The Little Red Caboose, written in the 1950s by an American, Marian Potter, but sold around the world, e.g. W.H. Smith in the UK and Big W in Australia.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: mkenuk on September 07, 2020, 05:27:50 PM
Thanks, Alan, obviously I accept your decision.

At least, I now know the difference between caboose and calaboose.
I had assumed that they were one and the same thing.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: pat on September 07, 2020, 06:52:05 PM
At least, I now know the difference between caboose and calaboose.

I don't think I've ever heard of either word.  :-R

Just possibly caboose (although I wouldn't have been able to say what it meant) but definitely not calaboose.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: les303 on September 08, 2020, 08:05:08 AM
I am familiar with the word caboose, probably due to my work history in the rail industry but i also vaguely know it as an American term for the backside & like Mike, i mistakenly thought it could also mean a prison which leads to the question is calaboose also classified as common?

Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: TRex on September 08, 2020, 09:00:54 AM
Trains in the US no longer have cabooses. They were eliminated decades ago.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Jacki on September 08, 2020, 09:26:59 AM
Definitely heard of caboose and thought it is a section of a train - calaboose not really.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: les303 on September 08, 2020, 09:29:45 AM
Over the years governments of all political parties have told us that we would have driver only trains in Queensland by 2010.
That did eventuate for freight trains but we still have guards on our passenger services.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: Alan W on September 08, 2020, 12:20:37 PM
...is calaboose also classified as common?

Yes, calaboose is classed as common. I don't think it's ever appeared in a 9- or 10-letter puzzle, but it could be the seed word for a 7-by-many puzzle. Without doing any research into the matter, I wonder if there might be a stronger case for calaboose to be made rare.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: les303 on September 08, 2020, 01:22:55 PM
Is this " examples in literature " any help?

I'll put him in the calaboose and keep him till you get married and away.
THE VIRGINIAN|OWEN WISTER

Who knows the truth and speaks too loose In Berlin gets in the calaboose!
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY|EDWIN E. SLOSSON

They conducted us to what they had termed "the calaboose," a big, ramshackle, one-roomed barn-like structure.
TRAMPING ON LIFE|HARRY KEMP

The two lurched beside the constable to the calaboose, where they dropped down on the hard pads and temporarily passed out.
THE DUDE WRANGLER|CAROLINE LOCKHART

I had been duped by two brothers, Daniel and James Brown, who were then confined in the calaboose for passing counterfeit money.
SECRET BAND OF BROTHERS|JONATHAN HARRINGTON GREEN
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: les303 on September 08, 2020, 01:25:17 PM
On the other hand ;


TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «CALABOOSE»
The term «calaboose» is normally little used and occupies the 130.761 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: mkenuk on September 08, 2020, 06:48:02 PM
Possibly the most famous use of the word  - I think that's where I learned it - is an old song with the wonderful title of 'In eleven more months and ten more days, I'll be out of the calaboose'. Quite popular when I was a child, as I remember. It's sung to a tune reminiscent of the 'Twenty Bottles of Beer on the Wall' epic, so possibly an American servicemen's drinking song?
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: pat on September 08, 2020, 07:18:48 PM
I wonder if there might be a stronger case for calaboose to be made rare.

As far as I'm concerned - definitely!
Title: Re: caboose -common?
Post by: birdy on September 15, 2020, 11:32:30 AM
I think I've mostly seen calaboose in novels of the old west, or maybe in more recent times in a jocular reference.  If it's not used much outside the US, I'd agree that it should be rare.