Tuesday, November 30, 2010

British Word of the Day

This shall take the rucks out...
ruck (rk)
v. rucked, ruck·ing, rucks
v.tr.
To make a fold in; crease.
v.intr.
To become creased.
n.
A crease or pucker, as in cloth.

[Ultimately from Old Norse hrukka, wrinkle, fold;

Use: The Professor was waiting in his patient's room, sitting on the side of the carefully made bed, rucking up the quilt in a careless fashion. (Winter Wedding)

Hospitals don't make such a fuss anymore if anyone rucks up the bed linen. During my post-natal stays, the only way I could get comfortable was if I made a bit of a nest--shoring up the sides of the bed with those paper-thin pillows and soft as down (ha!) hospital blankets. Me and baby would spend a lot of time falling in love with each other in the hollowed out mess. Lots of rucking going on. Lots.

3 comments:

  1. I got yelled at a Portland, Maine hospital when I got snowed in visiting my mother, who'd been operated on for a broken hip. I'd made the decision not to drive home ("home" being my parents house on the beach, a 30+ minute drive in good weather), and there wasn't even a comfy chair in my mother's room, so I found an unoccupied hospital room and fell asleep. I hadn't climbed into the bed, just slept on top. But either I was a high risk for "cooties" or I'd rucked up their hospital corners, because a nasty Ward Sister (okay, the US equivalent thereof) scolded me.

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  2. Ah. An unauthorized rucker. What year was this?

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