9.0027 Corrs: On Sporting the Oak (2/45)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sun, 21 May 1995 14:52:42 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 9, No. 0027. Sunday, 21 May 1995.


(1) Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 11:40:10 +0100 (11 lines)
From: stephen.parkinson@Modern-Languages.oxford.ac.uk
Subject: Oak (sesame)

(2) Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 12:08:09 +0100 (BST) (34 lines)
From: "F.W.Langley" <F.W.Langley@french.hull.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 9.0025 Rs: Sesame; Pilgrimages (2/32)

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 11:40:10 +0100
From: stephen.parkinson@Modern-Languages.oxford.ac.uk
Subject: Oak (sesame)

Various colleagues have corrected my faulty recall of "sporting the oak", to
remind me that it refers to the open or closed state of the outer door,
indicating the inhabitant's readiness to be disturbed - in other words, it
refers to whether Sesame is open or not!
Stephen Parkinson
Oxford University

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------53----
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 12:08:09 +0100 (BST)
From: "F.W.Langley" <F.W.Langley@french.hull.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 9.0025 Rs: Sesame; Pilgrimages (2/32)



> Subject: Sesame
>
> The explanation given to me many years ago by a distinguished Persianist
> was that sesame wood was used to make doors, and that addressing a door as
> Sesame was no different from the Cambridge practice of referring to a study
> door as an "oak". (In student slang, "sporting the oak" was banging on a
> fellow student's door.)
> Stephen Parkinson
> Oxford University
>
Stephen Parkinson hasn't got this quite right. I don't know about
Cambridge, but in my Oxford days, to "sport the/one's oak" meant to close
the (outer) door of one's set of rooms in college as a sign that one was
engaged and did not want to be disturbed. To bang on a fellow student's
door when the "oak was sported" would have been regarded as a gross solecism.
The expression "to sport the oak" is attested as far back as the
eighteenth century (see OED).

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