User: jhetley Date: 2007-04-02 13:36 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Poke?

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-02 13:42 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Mulling

Hmm.

I see I haven't been specific enough. The word will need to be capable of handling considerable macabre eeriness.

The creature in question is an enormous, bleating ogre stalking battlefields sweeping up the souls of the fallen into a vast struggling sack. Sullen ranks of such creatures, in fact.

~D

User: stillnotbored Date: 2007-04-02 14:23 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

From my magic book of words, it lists for sack and bag the following-

haversack, rucksack, valise, kitbag, gunny-bag, reticule, sabretache, sporran, packet, satchel and purse.

User: kimuro Date: 2007-04-02 14:40 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

The word that comes to my mind is reticule (reticular vacuoles are pockets in the cells used to contain food for the cell).

Script was the bag used by monks to hold reading material.

Pock, vesicle, pouch, cavity, enclosure, sac, vacuole, bladder, cyst - all of these words have connotations of being sacks or containers.

User: txanne Date: 2007-04-02 14:30 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: fontenay-cloister

I think the problem is that "bag" and "sack" are already ancient Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. You might need to specify the material it's made of in order to get your Inchoate Feeling of Doooooom.

Hm. I think "sack" may be an invisible word like "said." I'm already creeped out by your description, even though it didn't have any particularly odd words in it.

User: txanne Date: 2007-04-02 14:31 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

*waves hello* I'm here via matociquala, BTW.

User: desayunoencama Date: 2007-04-02 14:38 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

"Satchel"?

I played with that one for a while....

User: thesaucernews Date: 2007-04-02 16:02 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

skulltucker?

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-02 16:08 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Profoundly Philosophical

...

User: pearlformance Date: 2007-04-02 16:46 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

What about baagh, which is also hindi for tiger for a sense of menace?

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-02 16:55 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Nepharious

A little to near the bah of "bah humbug" fame?

User: txanne Date: 2007-04-02 16:55 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

And they live in the Castle of Aaaaagh, right? Near Aaaarles in the Camaaaargue?

User: sovay Date: 2007-04-02 18:11 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: I Claudius

I'm trying to come up with a nice archaic word for bag or sack, and I've had no luck.

Budget?

Here's me black dog, here's me sheep crook, I will give unto you
Here's me bag and me budget, I will bid them all adieu . . .

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-02 18:17 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Mulling

Hmmm. I think the more familiar meaning of the word might distract the reader.

I may have to exercise some budgetary restraint.

~D

User: katallen Date: 2007-04-02 18:58 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: new

Not sure if I'm heading the right direction, but adapt a parfleche, maybe?

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-02 19:20 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Mulling

Possibly not, but...

A couple of people have talked about using the fabric/material of the sack rather than a clever word for the sack itself.

Something like a rawhide parfleche start a person thinking. Hide. Rawhide. Hmm.

Earlier I'd been thinking about "cary" a coarse medieval cloth. Cary Man.

Not quite there yet.

Thanks for pitching in.

~D

"Rucksack" has always sounded a bit ominous to me, as if it might contain, er--leftovers--from something. Or there's "nunny-sack," which is an off-the-beaten-path container term. Unfortunately, might strike some as humorous. How about a slightly different container: creel. Or you could muck about a bit with nounifying a verb: cumber, burden. Cumber-sack, burden-bag.

Susan Loyal

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-02 19:59 (UTC) Subject: Re: Bag or sack

Not bad. (It's funny how the Naming of Things distracts a person when he's supposed to be writing).

Latest directions:

Something with "cerecloth" a term once used for burial shrouds. Or Carrion Man.

You get the idea.

Is there a better word than panniers for saddle bags?

User: fairmer Date: 2007-04-02 20:35 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Here via matociquala.

Pouch? There's something marsupially grotesque about the word.

That said...

Here's the OED etymology for bag:

[Early ME. bagge: cf. ON. baggi ‘bag, pack, bundle’ (not elsewhere in Teutonic); also OF. bague, Pr. bagua baggage, med.L. baga chest, sack. The Eng. was possibly from the ON.; but the source of this, as well as of the Romanic words, is unknown; the Celtic derivation suggested by Diez is not tenable: Gaelic bag is from English. Of connexion with Teutonic *balgi-z, Goth. balgs, OE. b{ehook}l{asg}, bæl{asg}, bæli{asg}, whence BELLY, BELLOWS, and the cogn. Celtic bolg, balg, there is no evidence.]

I like the Old Norse baggi and the Gothic balg, m'self.

Under "bag-like objects" the OED lists "udder" and "dug." "Dug" has a certain something about it.

Sack doesn't seem as much fun to me, because Old English borrowed from the Latin in that case. No Gothic gutterals to lean on there.

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-03 15:23 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Cheerful

Yeah. Celtic/Germanic drift into bolg/balg is fun.

I am not calling it a baggi(e), mind you...

~D

User: kelljones Date: 2007-04-03 01:19 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

This might be too modern, but have you considered tuckerbag?
It does bring shades of "Waltzing Matilda" to mind, but otherwise it has a sort of hiding-place, food-relatedness I like...
Good luck with the search!
(via matociquala)

User: davidkeck Date: 2007-04-03 15:22 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Fond

Yes. The Waltzing Matildanity of tuckerbag probably renders beyond repair.

(Thanks for puzzling with me. Things drive me bonkers.)

User: womzilla Date: 2007-04-07 16:51 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

The enforcers of the Duvalier terrorism were known as "Uncle Knapsack"--Tonton Macoute--which is the bogeyman opposite number to Santa Clause.

I think "rucksack" has all sorts of deep resonances. "Sack" as noted has the verb form. "Rucksack" is actually from the German for "backpack", but the English word "ruck" is "jumble" and is etymologically linked to "reek" (pile) and I think to "rack" (as "rack and ruin" and to the torture device).

Hence, the Brothers Rucksack, with their bags of bodies jumbled on their backs.

User: womzilla Date: 2007-04-07 16:52 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Santa Claus, not Clause. I think the opposite number to Santa Clause is Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story.