Posted by Dave Jensen on Saturday, April 26, 2003 at 0:17AM :
In Reply to: thats really an A-Frame not a Gin Pole posted by mike stone on Friday, April 25, 2003 at 11:38PM :
Why "gin pole?" I've mis-used the term plenty myself. Maybe they were used to load cotton gins or barrels of gin? Shipyard term? Or is this like asking what's the dif between male and female threads : ) ?
You always end up digging up some history chasing words down...Some neighbors from the city were commenting on how quaint us "yokels" (another cool word...dunno where it comes from) were because we call pickups "rigs" and recognize our neighbors on the backroads by what "rig" they're driving. When I was a kid in Montana it was "outfit." I went back to Butte for a visit in my hippie-camo Datsun and an old-timer asks me, not unfriendly...just curious, "Why the hell did you do that to your outfit?"
A "rig" was a horse-drawn farm wagon. "Outfit" is a cowby term near as I could tell, seems like the miners used it too.
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