Boooooooooooooooooooooring

Post #27,431 by pwhysall 2/5/02 6:06:05 PM Reply	Boooooooooooooooooooooring Don't shoot the messenger. Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]
Post #27,461 by Ric Locke 2/5/02 10:48:51 PM Reply	Yeah, you're right. Sorry. Christian, can I have a skeg under the rear ski, or would that be cheating? Regards, Ric
Post #27,485 by CRConrad 2/6/02 9:02:02 AM Reply	Ehh... Dunno. What's a skeg? :-)
Post #27,596 by Ric Locke 2/6/02 10:38:03 PM Reply	Sorry. Your English is so good that I forget it isn't your first language, and you may not know some of the slang. A "skeg" is a small fin. The canonical article is made of either white metal or plastic, about 75 mm long and 50 mm high, screwed near as dammit to the center of a slalom ski -- the fat water skis that are used one at a time. It provides the few millidynes [!] of side force necessary to convert the system from "unstable" to "not quite stable". Regards, Ric
Post #27,598 by Meerkat 2/6/02 10:42:05 PM Reply	It's news to me! When I was at school, a Skeg was one who hung around at the beach all the time and surfed a lot. As opposed to the Westies, who wore flannelette shirts and did their best to act tough. Makes about as much sense now as it did then. ie: not much. "Then of course there is SCEGGS - the Sydney Church of England Girl's Grammar School," he said, geting wildly off track... On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #27,601 by Ric Locke 2/6/02 10:57:18 PM Reply	I think the West Coast U.S. usage and possibly Oz, refers to the fin at the back of a surfboard as a "skeg" as well. The way I know the word, it's properly used only for something that's near the middle of whatever it's attached to. Applying the word as a group-name for a bunch of surfers sounds like a perfectly valid usage for British and [more recently] British-derived English speakers to me. Regards, Ric
Post #27,603 by Meerkat 2/6/02 11:04:42 PM Reply	Cool! Easy to tell I've never surfed :) On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #27,629 by CRConrad 2/7/02 7:34:14 AM Reply	Ah, that's what I thought it might be. And the Finnish-english dictionary program -- which my employer has kindly provided me with, but I'd forgot I had; that's why I didn't use it yesterday -- concurs. Well, it doesn't have 'skeg' as a stand-alone word, but as part of the term "skeg of a keel", which it translates as "kölin kanta t. takimmainen osa". Unfortunately, Finnish isn't my first language either, so I'm not quite sure... But our dept secretary, Annika, confirms my hunch that this means "the base or rear end of a keel"; so the makers of this dictionary don't seem to agree with your "orthodox definition" that it has to be under the center. Oh well, this thing sucks anyway: It doesn't have a translation for "wolverine" at all! (Trying to find that was how I remembered I had it in the first place. But Annika -- I ask her about language stuff at work, because like Linus T. she's a Finland-Swede and thus perfectly bilingual -- tells me it's "ahma".) Uuhh... Sorry, I sem to have digressed a bit there... But anyway, to get back to the point: Why, sure you can have a skeg! I planned on that myself, I think. And that's one more reason to go, at least at first, with the El Cheapo design alternative of using an off-the-shelf outboard engine in stead of futzing around with water jets and stuff: If you mount the ski the easiest way, making a hole in it and letting it slide up and down the vertical drive shaft, you get your skeg "for free"! It'll be there already; outboard engines usually have a protruding fin below the propeller (presumably to protect the prop from hitting rocks or the bottom), don't they? Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #27,714 by boxley 2/7/02 6:58:38 PM Reply	skeg: skank at a kegger "If you're half-evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil." Norman Mailer
Post #27,758 by Silverlock 2/8/02 12:00:35 AM Reply	ROFL With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.

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