Ever since I read the following passage in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist I have had a fondness for the word Tundish- which basically means the dish which was used to funnel liquid into a tun.
Here James is talking to a cleric in the physics labatory in University College Dublin.
After a short discussion about philosophy they talk about the methods used to fill a lamp:
— To return to the lamp, he said, the feeding of it is also a nice problem. You must choose the pure oil and you must be careful when you pour it in not to overflow it, not to pour in more than the funnel can hold.
— What funnel? asked Stephen.
— The funnel through which you pour the oil into your lamp.
— That? said Stephen. Is that called a funnel? Is it not a tundish?
— What is a tundish?
— That. The funnel.
— Is that called a tundish in Ireland? asked the dean. I never heard the word in my life.
— It is called a tundish in Lower Drumcondra, said Stephen, laughing, where they speak the best English.
— A tundish, said the dean reflectively. That is a most interesting word. I must look that word up. Upon my word I must.
The french use the word entonnoir which has the same etymology as tundish.
Therefore I have always tended to think of my collection of glass funnels as tundishes.
These have come from I imagine several sources.
because I bought the first near the town of Grasse I always imagine it was used in the perfume industry.
Others were undoubtably used in the winery and yet more of them in laboratories.
In the restaurant, which had plenty of display space , they lined up nicely on a counter – they weren’t so easy to house out here .
And then I saw this picture in a French interiors magazine.
Suddenly I had a way of killing two birds with one stone – a home for my tundishes and a really good chandelier for my black lime stone table.
My original six have recently become eight when I managed to find two more on a trip to Annecy.
They are now en route to Ireland where my friend Clive has been comissioned to design the tundish chandelier.
Watch this site.
Comments
isabel healy
on April 9, 2011awaiting outcome with excitement….and some envy…… x
padraic
on April 10, 2011When I was Chief Examiner for Junior Certificate Science about 15 years ago, I was drafting a marking scheme with my advising examiners when I offered the word “funnel” as the answer to a particular question and was firmly informed that the word “tundish” would also have to be accepted as a correct answer. This word was a complete surprise to me and I was told it was common all over rural Ireland. C’est tonnadóir en Gaelique.
aonghus
on April 11, 2011To think that your daughter has always mocked me for my use of this word.
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