Where do cobwebs come from?

October 28, 2004 9:46 AM

Where do cobwebs come from?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders to grab bag (24 comments total)

Spiders.
posted by bonheur at 9:48 AM on October 28, 2004

Cobs?
posted by spacewrench at 9:50 AM on October 28, 2004

Cobweb spiders.
posted by cardboard at 9:59 AM on October 28, 2004

A "cobweb" may be called such because its thickness and random pattern
could (vaugely) resemble the spread of a swan's wing.

Male swans are called cobs; females are called pens.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:44 PM on October 28, 2004

Cob or kop is a very archaic word for spider which has fallen out of use. No swans required.

I can't believe SSF doesn't know spiders make webs - is there some other meaning to this question I've missed?
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:51 PM on October 28, 2004

Maybe Flanders thought they were caterpillar nests. He is the stupidsexy one, y'know.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:12 PM on October 28, 2004

;)
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:12 PM on October 28, 2004

Lazy Lob and crazy Cob
are weaving webs to wind me.
I am far more sweet than other meat,
but still they cannot find me!
Here am I, naughty little fly;
you are fat and lazy.
You cannot trap me, though you try,
in your cobwebs crazy.

-Bilbo to spiders, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
posted by spacewrench at 4:29 PM on October 28, 2004

See, I've always thought that cobwebs are dust in the corners of the celing, and spiderwebs are, well, made by spiders. I've had an ongoing argument with a friend about this for months - she INSISTS that they are one and the same and I say cobwebs are dust. I'm right, of course. :)
posted by tristeza at 5:20 PM on October 28, 2004

*boggle*

Aren't cobweb and spiderweb synonymous?
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:53 PM on October 28, 2004

maybe cobwebs are dusty, old, disused spiderwebs?
posted by amberglow at 6:06 PM on October 28, 2004

Aren't cobweb and spiderweb synonymous?

Yes. Sorry, tristeza. (i_am_joe's_spleen is right, the cob part is from an old word for 'spider.')
posted by languagehat at 6:41 PM on October 28, 2004

Hmmm. Judging from the Straight Dope link, some people obviously distinguish "spiderwebs", the beautiful wheel-shaped things, from "cobwebs", the seemingly random strands in nooks and crannies. This is news to me though. In my brand of English the two words are more or less interchangeable, although I suppose cobweb has more indoor connotations for me.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:23 PM on October 28, 2004

Cobwebs are generally disused and dusty as the spiders that made them having long departed (as amberglow has suggested). A spiderweb is nice and pretty looking and is, more often than not, occupied by a spider.

QED

For those who remain unconvinced: Where are you from? I think we've stumbled onto another one of those regional linguistic oddities.
posted by aladfar at 8:22 PM on October 28, 2004

yeah, in what regions of the anglophone world are cobweb and spiderweb synonymous? in canada (at least b.c. and ontario) cobweb tends to be in dusty corners and most people, i would say, don't know they're also made by spiders.
posted by louigi at 9:37 PM on October 28, 2004

New Zealand. Suddenly, I don't know if I'm "normal" even by local standards.

*phew* girlfriend agrees. You guys are weird.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:50 AM on October 29, 2004

I'm from all over. My wife, from Massachusetts, agrees with me and joe's_spleen that they're synonymous.

You guys are weird dialectal.
posted by languagehat at 8:22 AM on October 29, 2004

Cobwebs are spiderwebs in gothic houses, creepy basements, and haunted attics. All cobwebs are spiderwebs but not all spiderwebs are cobwebs, especially not outdoor spiderwebs spangled with dew and glistening in the silver moonlight.

Some characters in bad novels "brush the cobwebs from their minds" but we won't go there.

F/47/CA
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:47 AM on October 29, 2004

For me, BC and Alberta, cobwebs are a subset of spider webs that implies a tangled mass often contaminated by dust bunnies and almost always inside. So all cobwebs are spiderwebs but not all spiderwebs are cobwebs.
posted by Mitheral at 9:02 AM on October 29, 2004

I'm from the DC area. I thought cobwebs were random web-like collections of dust and spiderwebs were from spiders.
posted by callmejay at 9:42 AM on October 29, 2004

Ditto the BC/Alberta words.

Also, a bigass spiderweb 20 acres in size. Ugh.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:36 AM on October 29, 2004

Holy smokes, fff. That is so very cool, I say it should be a FPP.

I've lived in Kansas and New York, and I've never thought of cobwebs and spiderwebs as synonyms. You people are high interesting language users.
posted by melissa may at 12:18 PM on October 29, 2004

I'm with Secret Life and Mitheral and aladfar--cobwebs are much more Halloweeny.

M/40(in a month)/NYC
posted by amberglow at 12:43 PM on October 29, 2004

This reminds me of dove vs pigeon : same bird, but the words are used in different contexts (you don't talk about doves on the grass or the pigeon of peace). I too tend to use cobwebs more in the context of attic corners, but that doesn't make it a different thing.
posted by languagehat at 5:19 PM on October 29, 2004