[Vwoolf] boss of the back

[Stuart N. Clarke]

I find in this book (1834) by Walter Scott, which contains notes etc. to his works, there is a glossary: boss = hollow
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
I haven’t found where he used the word in this sense.

Stuart


From: Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf 
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 1:43 PM
To: vwoolf 
Subject: [Vwoolf] boss of the back

My colleague Laurence Davies, co-editor of Conrad's Collected Letters and amazingly well informed about almost everything, writes this:

"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.)"

Did Woolf have anyone in her circle of friends who might make use a Scottish expression / term?

This seems the most promising lead so far for the Jacob's Room puzzle.

Jeremy H


-- 
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus Professor
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
7491 Trondheim
Norway

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