About the idea that street dust is just packed with platinum. Which, in fact, it is, for a certain value of \”packed\”.
Question: is \”tosheroon\” a Sir Pterry coinage or is it a real word?
About the idea that street dust is just packed with platinum. Which, in fact, it is, for a certain value of \”packed\”.
Question: is \”tosheroon\” a Sir Pterry coinage or is it a real word?
How about local councils having scrap metal collection simillar to the the usual newspapers cans and bottles
Tosheroon is old Cockney slang for a half-crown. Two-and-six, was it? Orwell uses it in Down and Out In Paris and London.
Way I heard it, a tosheroon was a rich find by the mudlarks, used to work the foreshore of the Thames at low tide*. Tended to turn up in eddies at the back of posts. Thus a bit of luck chanced upon. Old friend from way back & probably dead a couple decades now,was one of the old style lightermen. Half of his language needed explanatory footnotes.”Me ol tosher” was what he called you if he knew you well & approved, so maybe “tosher” was a mudlark. The lowest of the low to use the usual reverse logic.
Tends to be a bit of an all purpose word. I can’t say i’ve ever heard of it in connection with a half-crown. Or ‘half a dollar’ as i grew up with. But painting is also toshing, So a painter’s a ‘tosher’. as well.
*Neil Gaiman uses it in ‘Neverwhen” which is why maybe you’re thinking tPratchett. But I’d definitely heard it long before reading the book.
Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell.
Why not just collect all the rubbish, stick it in a big hole in the ground, and when it’s full and after a few decades, dig it all up again as raw material for processing into new products.
Tim does say that the value in scrap is quantity and a big hole in the ground will have lots of rubbish.
Ta by the way, dofs hat.
Problem being, UK Lib, Orwell was another middle class, public school, fantasist who’d never been ‘down & out’ anywhere, let alone Paris.
So what’s he reporting? Some thing he’s heard? Something he thinks he’s heard? Or did he just make it up? And whole point about these limited dialects is they’re either being very specific about things that aren’t, to others, of much importance. Like Eskimos having lots of words for snow. Or they’re intended not to be understood by outsiders.
I’d always assumed that it was a Sir Pterry coinage (BiS: I think it was from The Truth). As mentioned by various commentators above it’s apparently used for half a crown. Oddly, the earliest reference I found to it indicates a ‘tusheroon’ was a crown – J. C Hotten 1860.
As for the article: Is there anything else that can be extracted from the ore as part of the refining process? While anything else is likely to be low value if it can be done without significantly increasing the cost it could be interesting.
I’m mostly thinking of any ferromagnetic dust – but I suspect the yield for that one would be too low to turn a profit.
Speaking of the meaning of words, in his original article Timmy refused to do the conversion from troy ounces to avoirdupois.
Doesn’t avoirdupois mean (as a literal translation) “Having some Peas”?
There was me thinking cockneys were strange….
bis: Orwell reports that he heard the conversation in a lodging-house near the Strand. He wasn’t down and out, but he spent periods over several years exploring the lifestyle in London and Paris.
It’s a myth that Eskimos have lots of words for snow.
JG: yes, but “avoir du poids” would be the modern French version – “having weight”
The Sir pTerry usage is from “Dodger”.
Possibly, SE. But Ben is correct in that it’s first used in The Truth.
There’s about a 10% difference between troy ounces and ounces avoirdupois (1 oz t = 192/175 = 1.09(714285) oz avdp, to be exact.)