"I know a hawk form a handsaw"

M

mangelme

New Member
Santiago De Chile
español Chile
Hola
I don't found these words sawddling and handsaw.."I know a hawk form a handsaw"
"that great baby you see ther i s not yet out of his sawddling clouts.."

Thanks :)
 
    • mangelme said:
    Hola
    I don't found these words sawddling and handsaw.."I know a hawk form a handsaw"
    "that great baby you see ther i s not yet out of his sawddling clouts.."

    Thanks :)
    Click to expand...
    Must be a typing error, it is "swaddling". This word comes from old usage, where a new born baby was tightly wrapped up in cloth and its legs wrapped with the same, supposedly to keep them straight. This fashion was still in use in the Balkans and parts of Poland not very many years ago. In Scandinavia it went out of use around the sixties. Thus, a person who is not yet "out of swaddling clothes" (clouts is a dialect word for clothes) is a person who is not yet grown up, somewhat immature. I think...? Compare, Mary's child was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in the manger.."
    To know a hawk from a handsaw probably means that the person knows what he is talking about, or has knowledge of something, that he is not quite stupid...:D
     
    swaddling = restrictive wrapping or clothing

    I know a hawk from a handsaw means I can tell one thing from another, so I will not be tricked or mislead with an imitation or substitution.
     
    "I know a hawk from a handsaw" is from Hamlet Act II sc ii. Hamlet seems to be confessing to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is only feigning madness:
    Ham. ...my uncle father and aunt mother are deceiv'd.
    Guil. In what, my dear lord?
    Ham. I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

    ​
     
    Kevman said:
    "I know a hawk from a handsaw" is from Hamlet Act II sc ii. Hamlet seems to be confessing to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is only feigning madness:
    Click to expand...

    Indeed. It is believed that handsaw is a corruption of heronshaw, a heron.
     
    maxiogee said:
    Indeed. It is believed that handsaw is a corruption of heronshaw, a heron.
    Click to expand...
    Really! I just assumed both hawk and handsaw were referring to the tools used in the building trade.:(
     
    panjandrum said:
    What's a hawk?
    Ask a plasterer.
    A hawk is one of these.
    Plasterers put plaster on the hawk to work it before applying it to the wall.

    What is a handsaw?
    It's one of these.

    So, rather strangely, this expression is just as meaningful to modern-day builders as it was to Shakespeare's falconers.

    Weird.
    Click to expand...
    As is hawking. Falconers loosen birds of prey, and builders loosen phlegm all day.:D
     
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