"surple" is it a word?
A few years back, I heard the word surple used in a poem as a rhyme for purple and meaning to come to the surface. "And some day our love will surple"Now I'm not sure it is actually a word. Does...
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Maple surple is just a humorous alteration of maple syrup to make it rhyme (sort of).
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OED1 does list surple as one of the variant spellings of the word surfle. The meaning, however, is to embroider.
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"Roses are Red Violets are PurpleSugar is sweet andso's Maple SurpleDang Me, Dang MeThey ought'a take Rope and Hang meHigh from the highest treeWoman, don't you wait for me." Roger Miller
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OED2 has nothing for "surple" beyond what aldi already found in OED1. I think "surple" for "surface" is either an error or a less-funny imitation of Roger Miller's wordplay.
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I've seen the claim more than once that "purple" has no rhyme, so the nonce usages seem to be take-offs on that bit of information.
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According to the OED2, there's a Scottish and northern English dialect word "hirple", meaning "to walk lamely."Roses are red,Bruises are purple,You stepped on my foot,And now I just hirple.
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This brings up an interesting question. What does it take for a collection of phonemes to be a word in a given language?
View ArticleRe: "surple" is it a word?
It needs semantic content, a meaning understood by at least a subgroup of those who speak that language.
View ArticleRe: "surple" is it a word?
Scottish and northern English dialect word "hirple", meaning "to walk lamely."I've seen similar claims from OED2 before, and all I can add is that the word isn't in any of my northern dialect books,...
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Find this word in the Dictionary of the Scots Language with 21 citations,www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/
View ArticleRe: "surple" is it a word?
It needs semantic content, a meaning understood by at least a subgroup of those who speak that language.Then I guess 'surple' is a word, at least in the phrase 'maple surple' and, by extension,...
View ArticleRe: "surple" is it a word?
"I've seen the claim more than once that "purple" has no rhyme, so the nonce usages seem to be take-offs on that bit of information." My rhyming dictionary and SOED both offer hirple and curple as...
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Yes, although in this case it's one of pretty limited use--probably a nonce word.
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