Apropos of this topic, (although a little off-beam.) I cannot provenance
most of these terms, here they are...
I have heard terms such as "lump" or "lumpen" (unsorted, as it comes out of
the pit); "crush" mixed sizes from the crushing mill; "ball" and "clod"
(enormous lumps); "double(s)" (in common and widespread use, about the size
of your two fists together); "shale" (fine, flakey coal); "shingle,"
"grass," "sand" and "gravel" (Tyneside, sea-coal in various states and
sizes); "mud" is a term used by manufacturers of the finely-crushed
coal-powder/water mix used for fuelling "liquid-coal" boilers.
I believe that "paper" or "skin" is applied to shaly textured coals
(actually a carbonaceous shale) which separated into thin cleavage
fragments about the size of your hand. An inferior (and almost un-burnable)
grade taken as a perquisite by colliers for burning at home.
Finally, a friend from Cumbria tells me that one particular grade was
"Amber" - a weathered coal which broke into rounded lumps about the size of
a golfball (and a whole pile of fine bits). The 'amber' is a fine brown
limonite glaze over the fracture surfaces. This was dug from a small
surface working on private land, and was the original "pick-your-own" coal
- for a small fee, you took away a bucket or barrow-load. The pit developed
into a shallow drift, now disused and occupied by badgers. The Amber is
worked out, but there is still some coal in the seams.
Subject: RE: Coal lump terms
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of SERVICE
CULTUREL L'ARGENTIERE
Sent: 20 June 2000 10:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Coal lump terms
Dear Group
I am translating a small coal-mining museum in Provence's panel notices
into
English, and am faced with some precise local technical terms in French for
different sizes of coal lumps, eg : "grelassons", "chatilles", "menus". I
can guess from the French roughly how small each one is, but I would like
to
correlate them to some range of local dialect terms in English. I only
know,
from Lancashire, "slack", and "cobs".
Can anyone offer me a few more similar terms for use, and thus improve on
the usual awful translations one gets in tourist places?
Thanks in advance
Ian Cowburn
Conservateur, Fournel Silver Mines
F-05120 L'Argentière-la-Bessée
tel +33 492 23 04 48
fax +33 492 23 20 90
mail : [log in to unmask]
exactly the same (passage/tunnel/gallery/corridor or pit/mine/quarry/shaft
or layer/seam/ strata or wagon/trolley/skip).
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