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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">By George, I think we've got it!</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div><br></div>
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On Wednesday, 22 April 2020, 17:10:48 BST, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf@lists.osu.edu> wrote:
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<div>I find in this book (1834) by Walter Scott, which contains notes etc. to
his works, there is a glossary: boss = hollow</div>
<div><a shape="rect" title="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HR5RAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA10-PA3&dq=%22boss%22+%22walter+scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi85cyiqvzoAhWaRBUIHerpBtsQ6AEIbjAI#v=onepage&q=boss&f=false" href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HR5RAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA10-PA3&dq=%22boss%22+%22walter+scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi85cyiqvzoAhWaRBUIHerpBtsQ6AEIbjAI#v=onepage&q=boss&f=false" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HR5RAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA10-PA3&dq=%22boss%22+%22walter+scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi85cyiqvzoAhWaRBUIHerpBtsQ6AEIbjAI#v=onepage&q=boss&f=false</a></div>
<div>I haven’t found where he used the word in this sense.</div>
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<div>Stuart</div>
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<div class="ydp904d4ea8yiv9774758323yqt8795189040" id="ydp904d4ea8yiv9774758323yqtfd17673"><div><b>From:</b> <a shape="rect" title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu">Jeremy
Hawthorn via Vwoolf</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, April 22, 2020 1:43 PM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a shape="rect" title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu">vwoolf</a> </div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> [Vwoolf] boss of the back</div></div></div></div><div class="ydp904d4ea8yiv9774758323yqt8795189040" id="ydp904d4ea8yiv9774758323yqtfd27326">
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<p>My colleague Laurence Davies, co-editor of Conrad's Collected Letters and
amazingly well informed about almost everything, writes this:</p>
<p>"Could boss mean the small of the back? According to the Scots Dialect
Dictionary (ed Alexander Warrock), the noun 'boss' can denote a hollow. (The
online OED records this usage as a Scoticism -- sense 10 -- but records it as an
adjective.)"</p>
<p>Did Woolf have anyone in her circle of friends who might make use a Scottish
expression / term?</p>
<p>This seems the most promising lead so far for the <i>Jacob's Room</i>
puzzle.</p>
<p>Jeremy H<br clear="none"></p><pre class="ydp904d4ea8yiv9774758323moz-signature">--
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus Professor
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
7491 Trondheim
Norway</pre>
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