Re: Land tract?

Posted by Word Camel on September 24, 2004

In Reply to: Land tract? posted by Lotg on September 24, 2004

: : : : : : : : : She is a bit "trying"="annoying"? obnoxious?

: : : : : : : :
: : : : : : : : I think it's closer to annoying and irritating than obnoxious, but you have the idea.

: : : : : : : Again, questions about single words are easily answered using a dictionary. This site is for phrases.

: : : : : : "These are the times that try men's souls." (Tom Paine, American patriot.) And these are the women who will test your patience. Same verb, so to speak. "Trying" is a so-called verbal, in this case a present participle used as an adjective, the original verb being "try = test". SS

: : : : : SS - I'm not sure I'd call Paine an American patriot. Here's a description from one website;
: : : : : [Thomas Paine] was detached from local patriotisms and national interests, a delegate at large in the cause of human rights, concerned with spreading the gospel of freedom in all lands.
: : : : : And here's a strangely logical sentence from another; But his radical views on religion would destroy his success, and by the end of his life, only a handful of people attended his funeral.

: : : : : The fate of his body is a mystery!
: : : : : I will dance to Tom Paine's bones, dance to Tom Paine's bones,
: : : : : Dance in the oldest boots I own to the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones.

: : : :
: : : : If we are talking about the same Tom Paine, he was English. 'The Rights of Man' and so on.

: : : : DFG

: : :
: : : He was a character. He was, indeed, born in London, the son of a corset maker (he wasn't very good at making them himself). He wrote the Rights of Man above a pub near the Angel in Islington. He was known for his stuborn refusal to wash (Thomas Jefferson once refused to let him into his office because he smelled so badly). Paine wasn't much good at anything except being revolutionary. He was given a rather large farm and land track for his service to the American revolution but wasn't able to make a go of it. Later in life he was obsessed with building the most advanced bridge of his age but failed at that too. And yet, he was on hand for both the American and French Revolutions and was able to sum up their guiding principles better than anyone. It think he might be best remembered as a cosmopolitan in the truest sense. Too bad he didn't wash more.

: Word Camel, reading that last paragraph (which was very interesting btw), you said that "He was given a rather large farm and land track". Did you mean land tract, or is that a different thing? Because I don't know how land was doled out in America for services, and because I don't speak American, I'm not sure if it's called a 'land track' or 'tract'. eg. When my grandfather returned from the first World War, the govt gave him (and many other soldiers) a 'tract of land' to farm (which considering my grandfather was a National Gallery employed artist before he went to war - was completely useless to him as he knew nothing about farming.)

"Tract of land" is probably more common. I think I was actually thinking "land grant" but wrote "land tract" instead. I'm not sure, stricly speaking, if it is incorrect but it is certainly a bit awkward.