Skidoo and Murrain

Murrain is not the correct word. It should be MORAINE:

" An accumulation of boulders, stones, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier."

Skidoos are a kind of over the snow vehicle.

http://www.ski-doo.com/

murrain i believe is a livestock disease, so i think your source has a misspelling--it ought to have been morrain, which is a rocky ridge left behind by glacial action, specifically by the retreat of the glaciers in the ice age. Look up morrain for a more reliable definition.

I have only ever heard "skidoo" as 1930's & -40's slang, so i can't help you there. "Men were left to" in this context means that no one interferred with them in their pursuit of their ends, and as i read that passage, it seems the author is referring to times when women did not appear in such settings.

Oristar, you're a pip, you come up with the strangest quotes. I really enjoy your threads.

There are a lot of people who are not to pleased with the advent of ski-doo like vehicles. Many feel that the pristine wilderness has been destroyed by the noises of the skidoos, and the hordes of people who heretofore were unable to reach the inner reaches of the wilderness.



It sounds like the author was speaking of the time when people could not simply ride in and out of the area. They needed to be prepared for a long stay, in order to conduct their expeditions.

Skidoo is a brand of snowmobile. Most people in snowmobile country call them skidoos.

murrain is an old fashioned name for listeriosis or circling disease. the word you mean is moraine, and Phoenix definition is correct, its just a pile of dirt and rocks either drug in by a glacier and /or as set said, left behind when the glacier melts

Ski Doos, do they still make them?

farmerman- Sure do. Just Go to www.google.com and type in ski-doo. They even have places with great deals. Too bad there is no snow in Florida! :wink:

You don't really want me to start talking about ski-doos and their evil twin the sea-doos, do you?

I'm quite partial to moraines. One of the parts of my geography and environmental sciences degrees that I liked - land forms. Growing up at the edge of the Canadian Shield meant we could go on fabulous geography field trips and really 'see' things. Erratics, moraines ... one of my favourite spots is a rock cut on the 401 near home where you can see where the Shield starts. Divine!


Really - is there anything better than glacier poop! I was quite proud when I could tell which droppings were from the front end of the glacier, and which end from the back.

imagine a pile of ice 3.3 Km high and moving south at about an inch a day. thats why the Canadian shield is so nice and smooth.

eskers ...
drumlins ...

ahhhhhh, the smoothness of the Canadian Shield. I'm starting to feel homesick. I need to get back to Bon Echo.

Thank you all.
What remains unclear to me is: "and when men were left to ration stores, trusted with science expeditions, and left to enjoy their freedom. "

The below is what I understood now:
...men were left there, because the ration stores were their life line. And then, they trusted with themselves to science expeditions, and then they left the hut to enjoy their freedom.

Am I on the right track?

.

The Fossil Bluff hut holds many secrets of the days when :

1. dogs led the sledges, not skidoos

2. men were left to ration stores

3. trusted with science explorations

and 4. left to enjoy their freedom.


The author is talking about how things were in a time in history when explorers were in effect dropped off/sent off - responsible to spread out the available food (ration stores) over the time they anticipated they'd be at the isolated camp - trusted to conduct explorations without constant oversight from 'head office' and - free to manage their own time.


Does that way of breaking it down help?

Oristar, you're close, "left" in this case, does not have a concrete meaning of being placed or dropped-off in a place, as in "the others left them there to . . . "--rather, it has a more abstract sense, that they had no choice in the matter, in days gone by, given their resources and the circumstances, which were not the abundant, readily available and labor saving resources which are available in our times. I'm probably not making this clear . . . in this case "left" is not being used as the past participle of "to leave," an active verb; i'll go out on a limb and state that there is no regularly conjugated passive verb "to leave," but that this past participle "left" is being used passively.

boy that really helped alot. i have no idea what you just said and ive been sort of speaking english all my life .

i think waht setanta meant was that "left" means , like "dropped off" or "stored , by making big piles along their paths"

No, i was trying to explain the use of "left" as in the expression "left to their own devices," which does not in fact refer to anyone in particular actively leaving anything -- rather, it is a descriptive abstraction . . .

well, that require that i go back and read the original .

Yes, youre correct, but still, ...jeesh, the explanation brought back memories of Sr Attila the Nun
then they left to enjoy their freedom, it was a 2 part usage, kind of awkward sounding to this reader. i dont like to see the same words used in following phrases unless its done as a good device. Here , it was not

O.K. - I'll give a crack at how I interpret the left (as it exists in the original context).

That left is related to leave - as in 'leave me alone'. Doesn't mean you have to leave physically.

Now, my interpretation of that left is the interpretation who has English as a third language.





(will OristarA ever come back after this?)

I heartily concur, and attempt to eliminate it from my own writing for any other than descriptive purposes (repeating crucial nouns such as society, environment, communication . . . et cetera . . . ). That's an excellent rule for self-editing.

You crack me up Boss . . .


heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

okseeyahroundlikeadoughnut

Regarding Setanta's opinion on "left", the only thing that I got from his illustration is "left, in that context, is a combination of multiple meanings; it does not equal to the past participle of verb leave; so, it is abstract".
And then, ebBeth's interpretation helped me a bit, making my thinking clearer.
Still, I didn't get it very well.

******************
when men were left to ration stores, trusted with science expeditions, and left to enjoy their freedom.

(1) The first "left" is abstract, while the second is concrete -- the past tense of verb "leave"?

(2) mem were left alone, they just lived with their ration stores; in fact, they had to live with the boring stores. In this "chronic crisis", they met "science expedition", so they trusted with themselves to the expedition -- they thought the expedition was their savior. Thus, they got rid of their cumbersome situation - that is, they left their usual place, to enjoy their freedom.

(3) Or perhaps it means:

... for getting rid of the boring situation, they joined science expedition to enjoy their freedom.

Maybe "they joined science exjpedition" should be "they organized themselves as science expedition, and then to enjoy their freedom"?

Right?