I have been corrected by the general public(many a time) that the person inside the building is the smithy. So if your name isn't Smith. .....you are the smithy. 

So obviously,  according to the general public; Longfellow got it wrong.

17 minutes ago, SReynolds said:

I have been corrected by the general public(many a time) that the person inside the building is the smithy. So if your name isn't Smith. .....you are the smithy. 

So obviously,  according to the general public; Longfellow got it wrong.

Good point. What do your students vote to give themselves on their report cards?

Hey WAIT my name isn't Smith so it's not strange to reach deep inside myself when I'm beating some poor piece of steel into submission?

Okay, that's close enough to normal for me, thank you very much.

Frosty The Lucky.

Pick a word, any word, and chances are excellent that it's spelling, pronunciation, and definition have been ardently defended against change by an academic who was overruled by popular vernacular. 

The word "set" supposedly has 464 definitions in the Oxford dictionary. 

 

Are we talking English English. American English or smarter than an eyefull of detergent, know it all English?

Smoggy,  I'll defer to your home field advantage as to whether the Oxford dictionary is "Enlish English" or "smarter than an eyefull of detergent know it all English".

Doesn't the kind of detergent effect how much smarts it has?

Frosty The Lucky.

I don't know what English.  But this is the same public that believes all blacksmiths make swords. And shoe horses. 

Of course we make swords, they work best for shooing horses you know.

Frosty The Lucky.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

Doesn't the kind of detergent effect how much smarts it has?

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm sure it does Frosty, having ones eyes open or closed is also directly proportionate to ones level of smartness!

53 minutes ago, SReynolds said:

I don't know what English.  But this is the same public that believes all blacksmiths make swords. And shoe horses. 

And all steel is knife steel as long as you quench it in oil.

I just looked in 3 dictionaries, Webster, Cambridge, and the OED.  My conclusion is....wait for it.....The general public is dumb.

I wouldn't say they were dumb---it'd be a lot quieter at demos if they were dumb!  Ignorant would be my choice and some willfully ignorant!

I've tried to come up with methods of telling the kids the truth while their parents are speaking rectocranially

So I have some stock phrases: That was once commonly believed but modern research has shown.... We used to think that but experiments have shown... That was a common urban legend but...   If you can correct them without putting their back up they are more likely to retain and use the knowledge---me getting curt with a crowd is a classic sign it's time for me to eat!

And I tell them that calling me a smithy is like calling a mechanic a garage.

1 hour ago, SReynolds said:

I don't know what English.  But this is the same public that believes all blacksmiths make swords. And shoe horses. 

I know what a draught horse is, and I know what a racehorse is, but I don't know what a shoe horse is, nor how to make one. Is there a thread on that in Member Projects?

there was a smith who lived in New Britain ct Elihu Burrit (the learned Blacksmith) He was invited to study at Harvard by Longfellow 2 years before he wrote the poem the village blacksmith. The one quote I like  from the letter he wrote to longfellow was "There is one thing-May I bring my hammer with me? Must I sink that all together I can assure you that my hammer is as much predisposed". He was sent to Europe by Lincoln to set up a brother hood of nations it was the first attempt for the UN .He would prop books on the chimney and read while the metal heated he tough himself to read and write 14 different langues  

11 minutes ago, JHCC said:

I know what a draught horse is, and I know what a racehorse is, but I don't know what a shoe horse is, nor how to make one. Is there a thread on that in Member Projects?

Here's one showing part of a shore horse and I'm sure I've seen whole shoe hoses on here somewhere lol. 

www.iforgeiron.com/topic/45739-horseshoe-horse-head

Well, there it is. 

2 hours ago, Francis Trez Cole said:

there was a smith who lived in New Britain ct Elihu Burrit (the learned Blacksmith) He was invited to study at Harvard by Longfellow 2 years before he wrote the poem the village blacksmith. The one quote I like  from the letter he wrote to longfellow was "There is one thing-May I bring my hammer with me? Must I sink that all together I can assure you that my hammer is as much predisposed". He was sent to Europe by Lincoln to set up a brother hood of nations it was the first attempt for the UN .He would prop books on the chimney and read while the metal heated he tough himself to read and write 14 different langues  

I went to college at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, CT and spent long hours researching in the Elihu Burrit Library.  He is a bit of a revered historical figure around here.  But, in keeping with the theme of this thread, most people have no idea...

Elihu Burrit is known to some of us folks well beyond the borders of the great state of Connecticut, & long before this particular thread.

SLAG.

17 hours ago, SReynolds said:

 Longfellow got it wrong.

He sure did ! 

I call my shop "SmoothBore Forge", ... and while it's true that most folks don't really know the difference, ... they never ask me to shoe a horse. 

 

( My family operated racing stables in 10 states, over a 30 year period, ... and I suppose it's confusing for them, when they see the dozens of horse racing photos on my office walls.  )

 

My great grandfather was the smith in a small Arkansas hill town during the great depression; he pointed plows, shoed horses, made house items, fixed farm machinery and pretty much did everything--leastways well enough to end up with over 900 acres of land (364 hectares).  What smiths did is very related to where they worked and when.

The person who hits the metal with the hammer is the smither.

The metal that gets hit is the smithee.

As Thomas pointed out, the definition of what a "smith" does, depends very much on what their public needs.  I don't see how this is wrong.  By extension, it's fairly obvious that necessity required a wider definition of the word than an academic or a historian might prefer.

Historically speaking, fixating on a particular definition, pronunciation, or spelling of a word in defiance of common vernacular is a great way to be proven wrong.  Claiming the public is stupid for not adhering to an anachronistic usage of a term is an old tactic that has never worked.

In the context of a business that trades with the common public, it's hardly a great idea to be quarrelsome about the company name.

I'm reminded of an old proverb:

"Arguing with a fanatic is like playing chess with a pigeon.  They'll simply make a mess of the board and strut around like they won"

8 minutes ago, rockstar.esq said:

 

I'm reminded of an old proverb:

"Arguing with a fanatic is like playing chess with a pigeon.  They'll simply make a mess of the board and strut around like they won"

That has to be about the best one I've heard in a while! 

26 minutes ago, rockstar.esq said:

As Thomas pointed out, the definition of what a "smith" does, depends very much on what their public needs.  I don't see how this is wrong.  By extension, it's fairly obvious that necessity required a wider definition of the word than an academic or a historian might prefer.

Historically speaking, fixating on a particular definition, pronunciation, or spelling of a word in defiance of common vernacular is a great way to be proven wrong.  Claiming the public is stupid for not adhering to an anachronistic usage of a term is an old tactic that has never worked.

In the context of a business that trades with the common public, it's hardly a great idea to be quarrelsome about the company name.

I'm reminded of an old proverb:

"Arguing with a fanatic is like playing chess with a pigeon.  They'll simply make a mess of the board and strut around like they won"

That's a good one, I'm filing it in my dented file system!

Here's one one of our foremen, Eddy, used to say. "Arguing with a fool is like singing to a mule." What made it such a memorable saying is he used to say it when someone argued with him.  We ended up agreeing. 

Frosty The Lucky.

4 hours ago, JHCC said:

The person who hits the metal with the hammer is the smither.
 

I'm pretty sure "Smithers" is Mr. Burns personal assistant.

Is he smitten as well?