Word for the day tarry

J

Josiah

Senior Member
Location
50 miles east of Cincinnati, OH
tarry



[tar-ee]
Spell Syllables


verb (used without object), tarried, tarrying.

1.to remain or stay, as in a place; sojourn:He tarried in Baltimore on his way to Washington.

2.to delay or be tardy in acting, starting, coming, etc.; linger or loiter.

3.to wait.

4. Archaic. to wait for.


 

Mrs. Robinson said:
Oh,oh I know this one! Definition #2 is how I would have defined it.
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I agree that's the meaning I'm most familiar with. For some reason the poem The Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice in Wonderland seems have suddenly taken up residence in my head and I think it is because the Walrus asks the Oysters to tarry a bit until I've eaten you all up.
 

Josiah09 said:
I agree that's the meaning I'm most familiar with. For some reason the poem The Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice in Wonderland seems have suddenly taken up residence in my head and I think it is because the Walrus asks the Oysters to tarry a bit until I've eaten you all up.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Now it`s in my head....:tongue:
 
The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things.
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
Of cabbages and kings.
 
Nope, there is no tarry in the Walrus and the Carpenter [I think he says 'no hurry' to the little oysters.]This always made me sad when young [although it made me laugh when I had grown a bit.] Shall we tarry a little longer with this word though?
 
Walrus.jpg
 
I have been thinking about a little rhyme I used to know as a child. I think it was from a large book we had by Robert L Stevenson, either called a Childs Garden Of Verses or just a Garden Of Verses.This particular rhyme in it featured 3 young children all sat around a kitchen table, one was slumped sleepily over the table, one was playing some sort of game on the tabletop, and one was holding a pan.I liked this illustration for some reason, and the rhyme went;
Let's to bed, said Sleepyhead
Tarry a while, said Slow,
Put on a pan, said Greedy Nan, let's sup before we go!
 
This looks like your poem except no line about "tarry"?



COME TO BED


"Come to bed" said Sleepy Head
"Wait a while" said Slow
"Put on the pan" said Greedy Nan
"Let's eat before we go"

"Need we go at all?" asked Slow
"I must" said Sleepy Head
"Or I shall sleep here where I stand
And snore out loud" she said

But Greedy Nan said "I must eat
I don't care what you say
If I don't have six meals a day
I'll simply waste away!"

Said Slow "Now let's not rush at things,
I think I need a rest"
"And don't you know" said Sleepy Head
"That rest in bed is best!"

"Problems and objections drive
Me mad!" said Greedy Nan
She gathered the objections up
And put them in the pan

She gathered all the problems, too,
And boiled them into stew
Then served them up with buttered toast
On platters white and blue

But Sleepy Head was fast asleep
And Slow was snoring too
But Greedy Nan was not put out
She knew just what to do

She'd not disturb her sisters
As they had their little nap
So ate the stew all by herself,
The bread too, every scrap

And then she wrote a little note
"Dear Slow and Sleepy Head
Since there are no objections left
I've gone upstairs to bed!"

George Ansell
 
DW, a catchy tune indeed. I listened to the song before looking up Ruby Murray. I was astonished to see that she was Irish. Not a hint of an Irish accent, indeed she sounded like grew up in the American Midwest.
 
You are right HollyDolly! I looked it up on Google, and it is from the Mother Goose book. It had only the few lines in it [that I typed in the earlier post] with the old words tarry and sup. It looks like it has been modernised since then to 'wait' and 'eat'.
 

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