Chrysti The Wordsmith: Tease - 1

Greetings This is Christie the wordsmith. Teasing can range in intensity from light affectionate jesting to tantalizing but undelivered offers to cruel and ruinous taunts general synonyms of the verb tease are vex annoy make fun of or ridicule the word tease has been around a long time with its first printed citation dating from the year 1000 during the old English phase of our language. But back then it tees refer to something entirely different. Originally the verb meant to shred or tear to pieces and was generally used by weavers and spinners to denote a part of the process of manufacturing wool and cloth teasing was the hand shredding of woollen strands to rid them of dirt rendering them soft and ready to spin into thread. Then after the woollen fiber was woven into cloth it was once again teased to raise a nap on the surface of the fabric. This was accomplished by drawing sharp spiky thistles called Teazle ZX across the surface of the cloth. It's not hard to

imagine how the verb tease meaning shred to pieces or comb with Burr spikes developed in the 17th century into a word meaning irritate with prickling mockery or torment with spiky vexatious remarks. TES is not the only word in our vocabulary that slipped its textile moorings. Next time on Christie the wordsmith will take a look at another verb with a remarkably similar pedigree. Haeckel. I'm Christie the wordsmith good 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. Pseud web dot com.