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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>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus Professor
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
7491 Trondheim
Norway</pre>
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