Where in the world am I today?: St. Thomas to Antigua to Toronto to Vancouver – A Travel Day!

Got the following from my friend Mike Wood in an email recently… The original text can be found here – http://wordsmith.org/words/buskin.html

buskin (BUS-kin) noun

1. A thick-soled laced boot, reaching to the knee or calf, worn by actors
of ancient Greek tragedies. Also known as cothurnus.

2. A tragic drama.

[Perhaps from Middle French brousequin.]

NOTES: A thick-soled boot was a distinctive feature of a tragic actor in ancient Greece. It elevated him and raised his stature. Because those big shoes were often worn by tragedians, we came to refer to a tragedy itself as a buskin. A counterpart of buskin is sock (a comedy) after soccus, a lightweight low shoe worn by comic actors.

“‘My vein,’ wrote Corneille, ‘often combines the lofty buskin with
the comic sock, and … pleases the audience by striking contrasting
notes.'”
Linda Winer; Corneille With Kushner’s Help; Newsday (New York);
Jan 20, 1994.

Interesting that the world originated with actors of tragedies… These days most people I know who go busking are more interested in comedy and you think any Busker worth their salt would prefer to collect his money in a sock, not an open-toes boot… That’s just dumb. Though I have heard of people who collect using a fishing net so that all the loose change falls through encouraging people to just give bills… Besides, it the comedic counter part to the ‘buskin’ had been adopted as the word for Street Performer it might have ended up that people would look at us and say… Hey are you going to do a socks show? Which is just a little too close to hey are you going to to a show that sucks? Yeah… Perhaps Buskin was the better choice.