Comments on: Where do cobwebs come from?

Question: Where do cobwebs come from?

stupidsexyFlanders — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:46:39 -0800

Where do cobwebs come from?

By: bonheur

bonheur — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:48:02 -0800

Spiders.

By: spacewrench

spacewrench — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:50:17 -0800

Cobs?

By: cardboard

cardboard — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:59:30 -0800

Cobweb spiders.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:44:28 -0800

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 c o b s; females are called pens.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:51:00 -0800

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?

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:12:21 -0800

Maybe Flanders thought they were caterpillar nests. He is the stupidsexy one, y'know.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:12:55 -0800

;)

By: spacewrench

spacewrench — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:29:45 -0800

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

By: tristeza

tristeza — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 17:20:56 -0800

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. :)

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 17:53:17 -0800

*boggle*

Aren't cobweb and spiderweb synonymous?

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:06:45 -0800

maybe cobwebs are dusty, old, disused spiderwebs?

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:41:59 -0800

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.')

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 19:23:12 -0800

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.

By: aladfar

aladfar — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:22:55 -0800

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.

By: louigi

louigi — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 21:37:04 -0800

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.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:50:53 -0800

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

*phew* girlfriend agrees. You guys are weird.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:22:37 -0800

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.

By: Secret Life of Gravy

Secret Life of Gravy — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:47:11 -0800

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

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:02:12 -0800

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.

By: callmejay

callmejay — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:42:11 -0800

I'm from the DC area. I thought cobwebs were random web-like collections of dust and spiderwebs were from spiders.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:36:15 -0800

Ditto the BC/Alberta words.

Also, a bigass spiderweb 20 acres in size. Ugh.

By: melissa may

melissa may — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:18:55 -0800

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.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:43:16 -0800

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

M/40(in a month)/NYC

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:19:27 -0800

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.