>
>
>On Thu, 27 Jul 2000, Lex Jenkins wrote:
>
>> Our local feed store also sells saddlery and some lenses. Everything is
>> either tack sharp or sharp tack.
>
>Now there's a misleading expression, surely? Unless I've misunderstood
>what a "tack" is, I have to say that, whilst superficially they may
>appear sharp, they're really very blunt, esp. compared to a common
>sewing needle or razor blade. In fact, if you had a knife whose blade
>had the same lateral cross-section as the point of a tack, you'd be
>hard-pressed to cut anything harder than butter with it. Even then,
>you'd have to let the butter warm to about 18 deg. C.
heh, good old 'murican english.....
"Tack", when used in reference to horses, is the equipment used to ride a
horse, including but not limited to: saddles, blankets, bridles, boots, etc.
Hence, "sharp tack" means really nice, clean, brand new horsie stuff.
"Tack Sharp", when used in reference to photography, refers to a lens's
ablility to render fine detail, as in the point of a tack (a pointy object
with a blunt fingerhold end, used to pin objects to other objects).
It is another brilliant turn of words from our friend in the great state of
Texas....
"head 'em up! move 'em out! yeeehaw!"
--
Be Seeing You.
Dirk Wright
Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to
measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you
imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
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