Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
John Lawson wrote on Tue, Apr 2, 2002 02:48 AM UTC:
Regarding 'cockles', below.  Note that the link actually provides no
solution to the meaning of 'cockles' in this sense.  Neither does the
Oxford English Dictionary, which has much the same info as the editor's
link.  The upshot is, we don't know what 'cockles' are.
I once read a hypothesis that suggested that expressions that were used
formulaicly, but made no sense (like 'dead as a doornail') were actually
the punchlines of forgotten jokes.  Sounds dopey, but think of how many
punchlines you use as metaphors in colloquial conversation, and how often
you really tell the jokes they go with.

Edit Form

Comment on the page General Comments Page

Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.