Boston or . . . some portions of the British Isles where, at least to
North American ears, final Rs seem to disappear into the ether. If HBC
carpenters were commonly French Canadian, its clerks were commonly British--
some Scottish but mostly English. I think we might be getting somewhere,
with Zach's further cogitations on the matter. I got these inventory
lists from typescripts made by a Park Service historian who was likely
not into old tools and technology, so it's very possible that he guessed
at the original documents (handwritten, of course), gave it his best
shot, and missed. Luckily the sources he used in the 1970s, at the
Hudson's Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, are now available here in the
library of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, even if on
microfilm. Use of the latter medium is now facilitated somewhat by
digital readers that allow tweaking for contrast and shading
(brightness), so maybe I'll be able to see what he did not. If I get any
better results from consulting the archival originals of the tool
inventories, I'll report to the Group. Thanks again, Tom Holloway

On Aug 10, 2012, at 11:26 AM, Zachary Dillinger
 wrote:
> One more thing, the French word for rabbet is rabbat, which if you
> pronounced it in a typical French fashion (like Chevrolet), would
> sound like rabbah, which could easily be misheard as "rubber".
> --
> Zachary Dillinger The Eaton County Joinery
> www.theeatoncountyjoinery.com 517-231-3374
>>> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Zachary Dillinger
>  wrote:
>> Tom,
>>>> Another thought has just occured to me, going along with the
>>>> "misheard
>> word" or mispronounciation of a word. What if the "rubber" plane is
>> really a "rebate" plane? I notice that there are no rabbet planes on
>> the inventory, and this would fit in with the general area of the
>> rubber plane on the list, being near other joint cutting planes, like
>> the case plane, and would be useful to make windows.
>> --
>> Zachary Dillinger The Eaton County Joinery
>> www.theeatoncountyjoinery.com 517-231-3374

        Tom Holloway <http://furfortfunfacts.blogspot.com/>

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