BS: Bail or Bale

Subject: BS: Bail or Bale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 04:25 AM

Do posters on this site mean bail as in pay to get out of jail?
Or bail, as in bail the water out of a sinking ship?
Or bale as in hay making?

Are we sinking because the banks have been making hay.
Or should the bankers and politicians be put in jail, and bail set a $700 billion dollars?

The Basilisk had a baleful stare, perhaps it should be turned on the bankers?


XG

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:14 AM

Oi, MacKenzie - have you missed your medication again?!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: gnu
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:31 AM

Hey! Hay?

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:14 AM

There is a world wide outcry to demand that certain Wall Street "rocket scientists" go to jail.

The FBI is just now starting to investigate.

No doubt that many will need bale money and might even try to use the bailout money to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:52 AM

Doesn't the current "bailout" correlate in some way with the "golden parachutes" so common among the thieves and pimps on Wall Street?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 11:13 AM

TO "bail out" has two meanings: to remove water from a vessel (usually by hand and often as a desperat emeasure); and to free another from prison by paying their "bail money". Hay is not involved.

I suspect, subject top further research, that the two terms come from the same root structure, probably akin to bailiff, also.

Etymonline says:

bail (v.)
1613, from baile "bucket" (1336), from O.Fr. baille "bucket," from M.L. *bajula (aquae), lit. "porter of water," from L. bajulare "to bear a burden" (see bail (n.1)).

bail (n.1)
"bond money," 1485, developed from "temporary release from jail" (1466), and that from earlier meaning "captivity, custody" (1259). From O.Fr. baillier "control, guard, deliver," from L. bajulare "to bear a burden," from bajulus "porter," of unknown origin.

So it seems I was right--the underlying concept being "bear a burden", bajulare.

A bailiff also comes from the Latin bajulus, porter or bearer of burdens, as does his jurisdiction, a bailiwick. A "bailey", related as well, is a wall enclosing an inner court, but its origin is not quite clear.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 12:14 PM

Gee Amos, I wish I hadn't asked now!

XG

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 01:42 PM

**giving Amos a baleful glance**

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: gnu
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:37 PM

And, "to flee", "to leave", "to decline participation". As in, "You wanna? Go ahead. I'm gonna bail."

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: heric
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:45 PM

Sink or sunk.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 04:11 PM

"Bail out" and "bail money" come from the same root as above.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 04:34 PM

root or route? [only works in the UK]

XG

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 04:35 PM

As does boy and buoy ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:39 PM

Whatever happened to Lifebuoy? It controlled B. O. (Bail out).

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:43 PM

Can I hold your Palmolive?

Not on your Lifebuoy!


XG

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:08 PM

John! I haven't heard that since my father died...35 years ago. He is the only one I ever hear use it.

He also said "Is May ready?" "May who?" "May-onnaise" "No, Mayonnaise is dressing."

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Rowan
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:40 PM

John's well known soap opera still gets an airing in my household.

And the root/route, buoy/boy confusions work in Oz, as well as in the British Isles.

While we're mentioning Wall St bankers and their ilk, having kicked an own goal they should be put in gaol. Without passing "Go".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Snuffy
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:42 PM

Sailors bail out a sinking boat
Aircrew bale out of a plummeting plane

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 08:53 PM

Aircrew bail out ... "To parachute from an aircraft;" to leave a harmful situation- Webster's Collegiate Dictionary;

Also means to empty out a boat, or the device (bucket) used to bail out a boat, etc., or the hoop handle on a bucket, etc., or to deliver property in trust for a purpose such as release of a prisoner, or a device for confining animals; these from Webster's Collegiate.

bail-out- "a rescue (as of a corporation)...." Note hyphen. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which gives a date of 1951 for this usage.
-----------------------------------------------

Bale- Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:
bale- woe or sorrow
    - a large bundle of goods
    - to make up into a bale

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:04 PM

Well, we can change that.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 07:18 AM

People have been bailing out sinking ships for thousands of years. They've only been bailing out of disabled aircraft for about a hundred years. Early aviators probably just adopted the pre-existing nautical term instead of inventing their own.

It's somewhat ironic that the two terms don't at all mean the same thing. The aim of a nautical bail out is to save the ship as well as the lives of the passengers and crew. The aim of an aircraft bail out is to save the lives of the crew only. (If there were any passengers on board, there probably wouldn't be enough parachutes to go around anyway.) The nautical term for the procedure analogous to bailing out of an air plane is "abandoning ship".

The supposed objective of a financial bailout is to save the ship, primarily for the benefit of its passengers, not its crew. That crew has probably already bailed out, in the aviation sense of the term, leaving someone else to bail out the ship, in the nautical sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 07:21 AM

Bald or balled?

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 06:43 PM

"Bail Up!" was the warning and instruction to halt given to the coach when it was being held up at gunpoint by bushrangers in 19th century Oz.

But my first exposure to bails and bales was on my grandfather's dairy farm. Hay bales have already been dealt with but there were two sorts of bail. One was the mechanism used to restrain each cow's head while being milked; it was a lever that was held in the locked position by a simple ratchet and the cow munched on some fodder during the milking. The other "bail" was used in cricket. The bails are the two little turned pieces of timber that sit on the tops of the three stumps to form the wicket; if either (or both) should fall the batsman is given out.

John, do you contemplate baldness and balledness?

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 08:17 PM

The bails in cricket are defined in the OED, but not mentioned in the American Webster's. This is expected, since Americans aren't sure if cricket is a game or a joke, so best not to mention it.

The game takes hold if one watches it enough- One hot afternoon in England, I stopped walking to rest and nap and watched a local game taking place in a field alongside the path. Enjoyed it!

Subject: RE: BS: Bail or Bale
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 08:27 PM

Then there's the bail gizmo on spin-type fishing reels that releases or picks up line. You open the bail to cast, and close it to reel. If you attempt to cast with the bail closed, you often wind up with a lure imbedded in some part of your body.