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Sloyd

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October 27, 2012, 06:48
Geoff
Sloyd
Ever hear of a sloyd? From the Swedish word, "slog," (Hence slog as used in English from Yiddish?).
Here's a paper on the "sloyd" teaching method: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/file...kersPdf/salomone.PDF I found it interesting, as stated in the last quotation, that it seemed to be the model for vocational education worldwide, yet it in and of itself disappeared.


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
October 27, 2012, 08:38
zmježd
sloyd

Never heard of it, but the etymology I see in dictionaries is from Swedish slöjd 'skill' from Old Norse slœgð 'dexterity'. English sleight (Old English sleahte) is also from the same Old Norse word. Where'd you find the Yiddish etymology for English slog? The usual one is that it's a vriant of slug.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
October 27, 2012, 09:18
goofy
Old Norse slœgð is from slœgr "clever, cunning", originally meaning "able to strike", from slá "to strike", cognate with English slay.
October 27, 2012, 09:22
Geoff
quote:
Originally posted by zmježd:
sloyd

Where'd you find the Yiddish etymology for English
I didn't; I was just musing on the possibility, given that Salomon was Jewish. Since manual work was considered to be drudgery, it seemed to follow.


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
October 29, 2012, 21:23
Kalleh
I've not heard of it before. I thought it intriquing the way Geoff's site differentiated a sloyd from a carpenter:
quote:
Sloyd or handicrafts is the non-professional production of small objects made of wood or
metal. There are important differences between such handicrafts and trades such as, for example,
carpentry. In Salomon’s time no machines were used in handicrafts. The craftsman or woman,
when making their products, used different tools and a different approach to the work compared to
that of a carpenter (i.e. while the craftsman uses a knife, the carpenter prefers the chisel). In
commercial carpentry there is a division of labour; in handicrafts, none whatever.
Do we use it in English? It seems, from that article, quite Swedish specific.
October 30, 2012, 00:09
tinman
quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
I thought it intriguing the way Geoff's site differentiated a sloyd from a carpenter

A sloyd is not a person; a carpenter is. The OED Online says a sloyd is "a system of manual instruction or training in elementary woodwork, etc., originally developed and taught in Sweden. The verb sloyd (slöjd, etc.), and the ns. sloyder, sloydist, have also been occasionally employed."

Wikipedia has an article on sloyd.

quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
Do we use it in English? It seems, from that article, quite Swedish specific.

I've never heard of it before. But it sounds pretty much like arts and crafts.
October 30, 2012, 02:31
arnie
There's an interesting article on sloyd from the April 1890 edition of Popular Science Monthly online here.
quote:
... ladies of queenly deportment all at present whittling or hammering, sawing or planing, like genuine carpenters, exercising many a delicate muscle now perhaps for the first time in their lives



Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
October 31, 2012, 20:30
Kalleh
quote:
A sloyd is not a person; a carpenter is.
Sorry, instead I should have compared the sloyd system to carpentry's. The person versus the system, of course, was not my point. My point was that carpenters use different tools (eg, knife, as compared to a chisel), the division of labor is quite different between the two, etc.
November 01, 2012, 06:30
Geoff
There is no division of labor in the sloyd system: one person does it all.

Here's the TV show where I heard about it: http://video.pbs.org/program/woodwrights-shop/#


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
November 01, 2012, 20:58
Kalleh
But isn't that true of carpenters, too?