Why do we (in the US, at least) call a certain part of a car the 'dashboard'"? Insofar as I can see, it has no connection with any meaning of 'dash'.

It is the part of the auto one dashes one's brains out on.

Because Meatloaf needed to call it that for his song about paradise?

It's from the days of horse-drawn vehicles, when a dashboard was used to protect the occupants from being splattered with mud. 'Dash' is used in a now obsolete sense of 'splash', 'splatter'

How do you know these things?

*shakes head in amazement*

Watch that fringe and see how it flutters
When I drive them high steppin' strutters
Nosey pokes'll peek thru their shutters
And their eyes will pop

The wheels are yellow, the upholstery's brown
The dashboard's genuine leather
With isinglass curtains y' can roll right down
In case there's a change in the weather

~~~~~~~~
Now, Arnie.. what are isinglass curtains?

Quote: Isinglass "...Any of various minerals consisting of hydrous silicates of aluminium or potassium etc. that crystallize in forms that allow perfect cleavage into very thin leaves; used as dielectrics because of their resistance to electricity..."

I don't know whether of not it's the same as "water glass" which we used to use
after the War to preserve eggs. Dissolve it in water in a bucket and put in the eggs. The isinglass sealed the pores of the shells and prevented decay.

Thanks, RE!

There's also an isinglass made from the air bladders of sturgeon and used as a clarifier in (attention vegans!) beer, among other things.

You beat me to it, neveau! That's what I've always thought it to be. I've also heard of mica being used for glazing.

mica is or was used as a dielectric for capacitors. Sounds like there are two things called isinglass.

Isinguess so!

I stumbled upon this while reading old threads:

quote:

Isinglass "...Any of various minerals ... that crystallize in forms that allow perfect cleavage into very thin leaves."
There's also an isinglass made from the air bladders of sturgeon and used as a clarifier in (attention vegans!) beer, among other things.
Sounds like there are two things called isinglass

Curiousity prompted me to look it up. Compact OED confirms that there are two meanings, and gives this interesting etymology:

— ORIGIN alteration, by association with GLASS, of obsolete Dutch huysenblas ‘sturgeon’s bladder’.

The Deacon's Masterpiece

.... or ....

The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay
*
A Logical Story
 *
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way?
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay
I'll tell you what happened without delay,

Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive, --
Snuffy old drone from the German hive;
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible earthquake day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, There is always somewhere a weakest spot, --
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, -- lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will, --
Above or below, or within or without, --
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,"
He would build one shay to beat the town
And the county and all the country roun';
It should be so built that it couldn' break down! --
"For," said the Deacon, "It's mighty plain
That the weakest place must stand the strain;
And the way to fix it, as I maintain,
Is only jest to make that place as strong as the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,--

That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese, But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.

That was the way he "put her through."
"There!" said the Deacon, "now she'll do."

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, Deacon and deaconess dropped away,

Children and grandchildren -- where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and found
The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;--
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. Eighteen hundred and twenty came;--
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.

In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.--You 're welcome.--No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day.--
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay --
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start. For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills, And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore,
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. "Huddup!" said the parson. -- Off went they.

The parson was working his Sunday's text,--
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the -- Moses -- was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill

-- First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,--
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, -- Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

-- What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!

You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,--
All at once, and nothing first,--
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

arnie: I agree with Cater, how do you find out these things

To find your source I googled the expr under "intitlerigins" and got 12,000 Ghits. Fortunately yours was on the very first page [Curious Word Origins ( Main Index)] but if it hand't been I could have spent all day plowing through 11,999 of the remaining hits

Incidentally, why does your algorithm change a colon to a surprisey face

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