Poles

[mayalld]

Well it's all a bit arguable, but on balance I think if a pole was being thrust into my guts (and thats when the serious incidents occur) I would prefer it to be a flimsy one.

 

Whereas I'd prefer it to be a blunt one, so that it wouldn't actually pierce the skin.

[WJM]

Anhar - thank god we have you around to keep us in check - we bow to your awesome wisdom! Try not to hold back in future - let it rip old friend!

Edited May 8, 2007 by WJM

[Timleech]

Didn't quite grasp the logic about pine versus ash. Surely the one which breaks more easily must be the safest. I have had a Bannister rail for donkeys years, it works perfectly, cost about £3. They must be kept well painted though otherwise they will rot away in no time.

 

Some of the best poles were made from Spruce, basically from skinny tree trunks, I believe they were forced through a die rather than machined from a bigger piece. Much lighter than ash, and the way they were made meant they were strong. I used to have one which was 25' long, which had come from the Dukers (Bridgewater) barges. Sadly some pi**ock broke it for me by misusing it.

Oh, and they're not poles. They are SHAFTS!

(or were, in working days)

 

Tim

[NB Alnwick]

Oh, and they're not poles. They are SHAFTS!

 

Quiite right - I was tempted to mention this earlier - Poles come from Poland . . .

[DHutch]

Just as an intergection to the topic.

- We have a alumium pole, and its fantastic.

- Wooden poles can be as good im sure, but ours is about 10 years old and still well above average and dam usfull.

 

 

Daniel

[Workhorse]

Where did you get the Aluminium Pole, and what size is it length and diameter?

[carlt]

Some of the best poles were made from Spruce, basically from skinny tree trunks, I believe they were forced through a die rather than machined from a bigger piece. Much lighter than ash, and the way they were made meant they were strong. I used to have one which was 25' long, which had come from the Dukers (Bridgewater) barges. Sadly some pi**ock broke it for me by misusing it.

Oh, and they're not poles. They are SHAFTS!

(or were, in working days)

 

Tim

S'funny the pole Denis Wain, ex-working boatman, sold me was described by him as a pole, Tom Chaplin describes it as both a pole and a shaft depending on the context. Of course I'm not suggesting your rolleyes smiley isn't appropriate, where would we be without that well known saying 'I wouldn't touch you with a barge shaft' .

 

If we want to be really precious about the terminology though, I believe punt, or quant is the correct, and more traditional name.

[bottle]

Where did you get the Aluminium Pole, and what size is it length and diameter?

 

 

Back of a lorry, scaffold pole size, cut to length.

 

 

Note to self: must not be flippant.

[carlt]

Where did you get the Aluminium Pole, and what size is it length and diameter?

Mentioned earlier, telescopic ally poles are at lidl from tomorrow, £6.99. They're telescopic from 1.14mto 2m long but no mention of diameter.

 

 

Back of a lorry, scaffold pole size, cut to length.

Note to self: must not be flippant.

You've got some posh scaffolders in your neck of the woods. All the scaff poles round here are steel.

[WJM]

Drop you alloy pole in the cut?! It wont float and it wont come back up on a magnet!

[Moley]

Mentioned earlier, telescopic ally poles are at lidl from tomorrow, £6.99. They're telescopic from 1.14mto 2m long but no mention of diameter.

 

They will only be around an inch, and sound like the telescopic ally hook we've got, with a twist grip to attempt to lock. Not much strength to 'em.

 

My ally scaffolding pole is approx. 2.5m and great for levering hire boats off the Shroppie shelf, or our own boat off shallow sides. It was left lying around in close proximity to the canal.

[bottle]

Drop you alloy pole in the cut?! It wont float and it wont come back up on a magnet!

 

How about if you place a piece of wood in each end and make it water tight, I think this is what Daniel has done,

[Chertsey]

I think you missed your vocation WJM. You should have been a Health & Safety bureacrat delirious with pleasure at imposing pointless regulations and the consequent costs and hassle on people in an overkill response to every minuscule thing that is perceived as a possible threat. Not content with telling us about the deadly dangers of cruiser sterns on narrowboats, you now say that boat poles can be "incredibly dangerous".

 

Do you know what those words mean? Have you any idea of the calibration of superlatives? An AK47 has the potential to be "incredibly dangerous". A boat pole is, well, it's just a lousy boat pole and if one or two people skewered themselves on a broken one it still does not rank remotely near "incredibly dangerous" any more than a cruiser stern does so.

 

You can see I'm sure that poles and cruiser sterns are not, in the scheme of things, "incredibly dangerous". At worst when used by fools they need to be handled with a little care, that's all. At best and for the great majority of users they represent no threat whatsoever. Boating itself involves a certain amount of risk from a large number of sources. You can fall in the filthy water and get a disease, you can get your limbs trapped between the boat and a lock etc., you could burn yourself in a number of ways, you could impale yourself on the pole, you can easily trip on the boat or in a lock, you could get gassed by CO, die in fire, etc., etc.

 

All of these are possibilities but none are even remotely "incredibly dangerous".

 

regards

Steve

 

Well (puts pedant's hat on), the term 'incredibly' is not strictly an indicator of degree. It means 'unbelievably'. I for one believe that an AK47 is very dangerous indeed, so I wouldn't call it 'incredibly dangerous'. It is credibly dangerous. On the other hand, a pole, if it is dangerous (and I'd need to see the pole injury statistics adjusted for number of users etc), is likely to be more dangerous perhaps than the average person would believe, and therefore might justify the 'incredibly' epithet. But then of course if we are convinced by the argument, anecdotes and stats we will have come to believe that it is dangerous and then it won't be incredible any more.

[carlt]

How about if you place a piece of wood in each end and make it water tight, I think this is what Daniel has done,

Can't argue with that!

 

 

Well (puts pedant's hat on), the term 'incredibly' is not strictly an indicator of degree. It means 'unbelievably'. I for one believe that an AK47 is very dangerous indeed, so I wouldn't call it 'incredibly dangerous'. It is credibly dangerous. On the other hand, a pole, if it is dangerous (and I'd need to see the pole injury statistics adjusted for number of users etc), is likely to be more dangerous perhaps than the average person would believe, and therefore might justify the 'incredibly' epithet. But then of course if we are convinced by the argument, anecdotes and stats we will have come to believe that it is dangerous and then it won't be incredible any more.

Can't argue with that.

 

They will only be around an inch, and sound like the telescopic ally hook we've got, with a twist grip to attempt to lock. Not much strength to 'em.

 

Yes they're definitely the standard boat pole fare. Handy for lifting your chihuahua out of the cut but I think they'd bend a bit tackling a GSD.

[Keeping Up]

We've got two ash poles (long shafts) and one short wooden shaft with a hook on the end, but the little telescopic twist-grip ally pole (which is actually a cheap paint-roller extension) that we keep at the bow is also very useful for gently pushing us away from things such as the side of a Thames lock whose exit gates are a couple of feet narrower than the chamber.

[anhar]

Well (puts pedant's hat on), the term 'incredibly' is not strictly an indicator of degree. It means 'unbelievably'. I for one believe that an AK47 is very dangerous indeed, so I wouldn't call it 'incredibly dangerous'. It is credibly dangerous. On the other hand, a pole, if it is dangerous (and I'd need to see the pole injury statistics adjusted for number of users etc), is likely to be more dangerous perhaps than the average person would believe, and therefore might justify the 'incredibly' epithet. But then of course if we are convinced by the argument, anecdotes and stats we will have come to believe that it is dangerous and then it won't be incredible any more.

This is inaccurate. "Incredible" is in fact quite correctly used as an indicator of degree and has been for some time as I'm sure you know. It is thus incorrect to take "incredible" purely as its earlier meaning of literally impossible to believe. If, disingenuously, you try to do so you will be wrong. In fact its meaning as a strong degree of emphasis applied to another word has been around long enough to enter the OED. I've just checked to make sure though I was pretty certain it would show this meaning.

 

The first meaning given is, as you say, literally "impossible to believe".

 

But the second gives the meaning as used in this thread. The example given is "the noise from the crowd was incredible".

 

Note that the word "unbelievable" is itself now used in the same sense as the second meaning of "incredible", that is, not literally lacking credibility but just as a strong emphasis.

 

In my view the second meaning of "incredible" is now more ubiquitous than the original, with the perhaps undesirable consequence that the original meaning may be difficult to use in communication without being misunderstood.

 

Your comments are not even pedantic therefore, they are plain wrong. Pedants are often wrong when trying to be too literal. Fact is that usage can change the meanings of words or give them secondary meanings. The sometimes unfortunate part of the constant change in the language is that one cannot use the word in its original meaning without being misunderstood because everyone will attribute the new meaning to the word. There are numerous examples of this throughout history of which "incredible" is just one. A very common one is "gay" which now cannot be used in its original meaning without being completely misinterpreted. Another is "egregious", an adjective which once meant very good but now means the precise opposite, very bad.

 

I too dislike intensely the misuse of words, but I have noticed that on occasion the misuse becomes the norm, so that one then has to give in and go with the flow, like it or not, if communication is to be effective. And there's little point in communication that is not effective.

 

Recently, I took issue with a reader on this forum who misused the word "barter" when it was "bargain" that was meant, in the sense of haggling. However a few months ago I watched one of those TV property programmes and a presenter misused "barter" in exactly the same way, which made my toes curl. So it could be that "barter" is gradually being corrupted by usage into meaning "bargain". If that goes sufficiently far, I will have to concede defeat and accept that "barter" now actually does mean "bargain". The unfortunate side effect will be then that "barter" in its useful true sense will be lost.

 

So if one wants to be pedantic about word usage, the attitude needs to adapt to the constant change in the language if it is to remain accurate.

 

regards

Steve

Edited May 9, 2007 by anhar

[Bones]

I have an ash pole. I did have a punting pole that I fished out of the canal. It worked a treat until a member of crew broke it. I bought an ash pole, and he broke that as well... but another chum put it back together again. I don't know what the pole on this boat is but it looks like a banester pole and is lighter and easier to use than the huge ash one. He hasn't snapped that in half - but he hasn't used it.

 

As for poles being dangerous, I find life can be quite dangerous; not only is it a sexually transmitted disease, but it always ends in death. It doesn't stop us spreading it, nor engaging in it.

[carlt]

This is inaccurate. "Incredible" is in fact quite correctly used as an indicator of degree and has been for some time as I'm sure you know. It is thus incorrect to take "incredible" purely as in its earlier meaning of literally impossible to believe. If, disingenuously, you try to do so you will be wrong. In fact its meaning as a strong degree of emphasis applied to another word has been around long enough to enter the OED. I've just checked to make sure though I was pretty certain it would show this meaning.

 

The first meaning given is, as you say, literally "impossible to believe".

 

But the second gives the meaning as used in this thread. The example given is "the noise from the crowd was incredible".

 

Note that the word "unbelievable" is itself now used in the same sense as the second meaning of "incredible", that is, not literally lacking credibility but just as a strong emphasis.

 

Steve

Blimey steve you should be a politician. You are arguing that black, if described as white often enough, will become white.

 

If the first OED definition is given as "impossible to believe" then surely that is the main definition.

 

If someone describes a situation as incredible, then I interpret that as barely believable. Such as "the noise from the crowd was incredible" being interchangeable with "you wouldn't believe the noise from the crowd"; the strong emphasis being "noise", not "incredible. Being a forgiving character I'd let it go if what they meant to say was "the noise from the crowd was very loud".

[Moley]

I bought an ash pole, and he broke that as well... but another chum put it back together again.

 

Well, even if he has used one of those glues which is supposed to be stronger than the wood itself, I wouldn't fancy using that pole, just in case.

 

So, is there a correct way to use a pole?

 

Personally, where possible, I stand with my back to the bank, put the pole under my left armpit, cup both hands over the end, lean back into it and pull rather than pushing.

[carlt]

Well, even if he has used one of those glues which is supposed to be stronger than the wood itself, I wouldn't fancy using that pole, just in case.

 

So, is there a correct way to use a pole?

 

Personally, where possible, I stand with my back to the bank, put the pole under my left armpit, cup both hands over the end, lean back into it and pull rather than pushing.

It depends what you're doing with it really. If pushing off from mud I tend to put the pole end against my shoulder and push.

 

If using it to manouever the butty I'll often use it punt style.

 

Boat-jousting rules demand that you hold it under the right arm. At the highest level of competition they sharpen the hook ends.

[anhar]

Blimey steve you should be a politician. You are arguing that black, if described as white often enough, will become white.

 

If the first OED definition is given as "impossible to believe" then surely that is the main definition.

 

If someone describes a situation as incredible, then I interpret that as barely believable. Such as "the noise from the crowd was incredible" being interchangeable with "you wouldn't believe the noise from the crowd"; the strong emphasis being "noise", not "incredible. Being a forgiving character I'd let it go if what they meant to say was "the noise from the crowd was very loud".

Hello Carl

 

Yes, black would if misused often enough to by usage to mean white would indeed become so. It would even enter the OED in time because their mission is to reflect usage as well as original meanings. I gave a very good example earlier with "egregious" which has indeed come to mean the precise opposite of its earlier meaning. So there must have been a period on the cusp of its changing use when it was probably difficult to use it without being misunderstood. As with "gay" and many other words as I said. Such is language, no attempt to make it stand still ever works.

 

"Incredible" in the sense being used in this thread is merely to add strong emphasis, not to mean literally unbelievable. Barely believable is not the same at all as literally unbelievable.

 

And the strong emphasis sense is used constantly these days, far more than the orginal and literal meaning. People refer very frequently to something as incredible when all they mean is that it was great, marvellous, strongly and the like. You know that. They don't mean in any way that it was not believable. If someone told you they've just got back from a trip to Mars, that would be literally incredible. But if someone talks of an incredible crowd noise, all they mean is that was a very powerful noise, not that you shouldn't believe it. On the contrary they wish positively to convey belief and by using "incredible" they hope to describe the event in suitably powerful terms so as to give you the flavour of it.

 

The original meaning of incredible is now all but lost and is a good example of what I was saying earlier. We can hardly use the word any longer in its true meaning because most if not all those hearing it would assume that it was being used to add emphasis, not to mean literally unbelievable. Take the way it was used in this thread about "incredibly dangerous" poles. This wan't meant to indicate that the danger is non existent because it is not credible, nobody could really interpret it that way. It was supposed to infer the exact opposite, that poles are highly, very, seriously, dangerous. That is, it is just a common, perhaps too common and therefore losing the effect, emphasis word.

 

regards

Steve

Edited May 9, 2007 by anhar

[WJM]

Fill your alloy pole with helium (hydrogen would be just silly and dangerous)

 

 

Thank you WarriorWoman - I guess this is one of two reasons why you dont get a pole on a hire boat 1) just something to loose and 2) they look innocuous but can be dangerous

 

 

Best contribution that could ever be made to road safety is to fit large spikes to the middle of the steering wheel - who is going to speed or take risks then - perceived danger is the key - a pole looks innocuous

 

 

incredibly dangerous = not believed/perceived to be dangerous

Edited May 9, 2007 by WJM

[Chertsey]

This is inaccurate. "Incredible" is in fact quite correctly used as an indicator of degree and has been for some time as I'm sure you know. It is thus incorrect to take "incredible" purely as its earlier meaning of literally impossible to believe. If, disingenuously, you try to do so you will be wrong. In fact its meaning as a strong degree of emphasis applied to another word has been around long enough to enter the OED. I've just checked to make sure though I was pretty certain it would show this meaning.

 

The first meaning given is, as you say, literally "impossible to believe".

 

But the second gives the meaning as used in this thread. The example given is "the noise from the crowd was incredible".

 

Note that the word "unbelievable" is itself now used in the same sense as the second meaning of "incredible", that is, not literally lacking credibility but just as a strong emphasis.

 

In my view the second meaning of "incredible" is now more ubiquitous than the original, with the perhaps undesirable consequence that the original meaning may be difficult to use in communication without being misunderstood.

 

Your comments are not even pedantic therefore, they are plain wrong. Pedants are often wrong when trying to be too literal. Fact is that usage can change the meanings of words or give them secondary meanings. The sometimes unfortunate part of the constant change in the language is that one cannot use the word in its original meaning without being misunderstood because everyone will attribute the new meaning to the word. There are numerous examples of this throughout history of which "incredible" is just one. A very common one is "gay" which now cannot be used in its original meaning without being completely misinterpreted. Another is "egregious", an adjective which once meant very good but now means the precise opposite, very bad.

 

I too dislike intensely the misuse of words, but I have noticed that on occasion the misuse becomes the norm, so that one then has to give in and go with the flow, like it or not, if communication is to be effective. And there's little point in communication that is not effective.

 

Recently, I took issue with a reader on this forum who misused the word "barter" when it was "bargain" that was meant, in the sense of haggling. However a few months ago I watched one of those TV property programmes and a presenter misused "barter" in exactly the same way, which made my toes curl. So it could be that "barter" is gradually being corrupted by usage into meaning "bargain". If that goes sufficiently far, I will have to concede defeat and accept that "barter" now actually does mean "bargain". The unfortunate side effect will be then that "barter" in its useful true sense will be lost.

 

So if one wants to be pedantic about word usage, the attitude needs to adapt to the constant change in the language if it is to remain accurate.

 

regards

Steve

 

Blimey. Totally out-pedanted. I take my hat off to you.

 

Not sure I follow the logic of 'Your comments are not even pedantic therefore, they are plain wrong' though.

[WJM]

I know - without Anhar this whole forum would collapse into fast information exchange! Where would we be without him!

[John Orentas]

By sheer chance I have just been reading a couple of chapters about Vlad the impaler. Charming chap he once organised a formal dinner, his guests where surrounded by a few dozen vagrants impaled on poles in various stages of dying. When one of his guests complained about the general ambiance he joined the other lot on a pole of his own.

 

And people complain about bad manners on the forum, never accept dinner party invitations.