Chrysti The Wordsmith: Wool Gathering

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. To be accused of wool gathering is to be chided for daydreaming or inattention. Wool gatherers may also engage in unprofitable employment or trivial hobbies. What exactly is wool gathering and why does the word carry such a negative connotation. Well where ever sheep are kept tufts of their wool in evitable they become snagged on branches bushes thorns and fence posts in centuries past. Children were sent out to the pasture to collect scattered bits of wool for the spinning pile meandering from tuft to tuft and often stopping to play the young wool gathers moved aimlessly across the landscape not accomplishing much of value. Those who wander and daydream today are metaphorical wool gatherers chasing tufts of fantasies with no real plan to make much of them. The concept is many centuries old. The Oxford English Dictionary lists a citation of the word that appeared in 15 53. CHRISTIE The wordsmith has produced at the studios of KGO

altie FM on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman. Brody Kates a studio engineer and Dr. Philip Gaines is script editor for a bibliography of my favorite word books and dictionaries as well as information about verbal whores feast a book based on this radio series log onto wordsmith radio dot org. There you'll find my e-mail address where you can contact me with comments and weird suggestions. Could Dave herbivores Christie the wordsmith a sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry sued web dotcom.