Timeline for all fire and toe
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 15 at 15:19 | comment | added | Lambie | Farther into the narrative, the man mentions a "tow sack", which is the same as a gunny sack. So, a sack made of untwisted plant fibers as Phil Sweet says. | |
| Jan 15 at 15:04 | answer | added | TimR | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 15 at 12:56 | comment | added | TimR | "all fire and tow" with little doubt refers on a literal level to the flame that leaps out when the wick of a candle catches fire before burning down to the point where the wax moderates the flame so that it burns steadily. So I suspect the figurative meaning is to be found in what it would mean to compare a person to that sudden and short-lived flare of flame. A gossip, or someone who is insubstantial, i.e. talks nonsense. | |
| Jan 15 at 5:47 | answer | added | lil' barbussy | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 20, 2020 at 5:23 | answer | added | JEL | timeline score: 5 | |
| Sep 18, 2020 at 0:08 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | @JEL Except that I haven't a clue what the Texan meant by the phrase or how it would have gotten to Texas, except I did find one tantalizing reference - Matthew Henry Bible Commentary, 1710, Proverbs 14:29. | |
| Sep 17, 2020 at 18:34 | history | edited | JEL | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
replaced source link with better; added context
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| Sep 17, 2020 at 18:26 | history | edited | JEL | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added reference from comment by OP. Added tags because the 'meaning' is bound up in phrase's allusive sense and proverbial use.
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| Jun 8, 2020 at 22:53 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | Tow is untwisted plant fibers, often carried and used as kindling. It was produced commercially for caulking from the remains of rope making. It was often mixed with resins and tar. link boy | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 22:36 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | As in the Canterbury tales. fyr and tow | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 17:50 | answer | added | Greybeard | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 16:18 | answer | added | user387838 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 12:52 | comment | added | dmms | When it comes to the speech of black folks in the South, no text is definitive. Your reference is a good one. Also, the slave narratives recorded by the WPA in the 1930s are invaluable. My schooling began with the neighbor lady who was 113 years old and told me stories of her memories of Reconstruction (or so she claimed). One thing I've learned is that vernacular language is a register where individual creativity is honored, so that one person could alter an idiom slightly to make it more clever. So it's not always possible to find in some reference book every phrase uttered. | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 12:51 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 19, 2020 at 3:05 | |||||
| Jun 8, 2020 at 12:49 | comment | added | Mitch | @RustyBrooklyn Which first comment? I don't see any link you've given anywhere in a comment. | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 12:10 | comment | added | Rusty Brooklyn | First comment links to context. I didn't provide context because I anticipated it would trigger guesses. I appreciate good intentions, but in this case not interested in guesses. And, yes, there's misundertanding/bad transcription in as-told-to's but I'm pretty sure its not the case here. I googled around and found a few other examples of 'all fire & toe'. Otherwise, I've also been studying SBE for years. Curious to know what you consider the ultimate text. For me, it's ALL GOD"S DANGERS. | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 11:42 | answer | added | FumbleFingers | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 11:41 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Please add a linked reference and the complete sentence. | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 11:33 | comment | added | dmms | Could you provide some context for the idiom? As someone who's been studying Southern Black English for some years, I'm interested in further tracking this. Often, idiomatic expressions seem mysterious because of pronunciation-- the transcriber simply misunderstood what the interviewee was saying. The closest I've heard is "get up some (or "your") fire and try", as an expression of encouragement. | |
| Jun 8, 2020 at 11:32 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 8, 2020 at 11:34 | |||||
| Jun 8, 2020 at 11:25 | history | asked | Rusty Brooklyn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |