Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.
How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.
If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 3rd) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
This was originally posted on December 3, 2017.
Is That a Typo?
I was sure that WordPress had a serious typo in today’s one word prompt, “tenterhooks.” I was absolutely positive the word was supposed to be “tenderhooks,” a word I’ve use occasionally to mean to be filled with painful or anxious anticipation or suspense. Like when you and your girlfriend are waiting to see if that plastic pregnancy test stick she peed on has a little plus sign in the window.
So I was going to write a snide post in which I would be laughing my virtual ass off at Michelle Weber, who posted the prompt, for her careless error. It turns out, though, that the error is mine. “Tenterhooks” it is! Sad!
Then I figured that tenterhooks must be hooks that campers use to secure their tents. I’ve tent-camped many times and had never heard of that term, so I thought maybe it was an archaic term for tent poles, stakes, or ropes. To confirm that, I Googled “tenterhooks.”
It turns out that tenterhooks have nothing whatsoever to do with tents. The word “tenterhooks” comes from the metal hooks that manufacturers used to stretch wool on a tenter while it dried. A tenter is a wooden frame, often in the form of a line of fencing, used to hang woolen or linen cloth to prevent it from shrinking as it dries. The tenterhooks are, not surprisingly, the hooks on the tenter used to hold the cloth in place.
Tenters are no longer everyday objects, but a hundred years ago, in wool weaving areas like the north of England, they were a common sight on the land around the many woollen mills, called “tenter-fields.”
Who knew? So I apologize to WordPress and to Michelle Weber for thinking it was a typo. And I am now swearing off ever using the phrase, “I’m on tenderhooks.”
By the way, she wasn’t pregnant.
This, That, and the Other 
Buddy r they trying to produce some pop music or what ?
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Tenderhooks could be softened hooks meant for eating? 😃😂🤣🤣🤣
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I think I may have typo’d that one too lol.
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😂
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I’m interested what you thought tenderhooks were. Covered in padding?
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I thought being on tenderhooks meant being in anticipation of something or being in suspense. I don’t know why I thought that.
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I think I remember passing up this prompt.
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That makes a lot more sense than tenderhooks ever did!
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😉
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My post from three years ago features a type of tamales from Southern Mexico; I had forgotten how beautiful they are, so special thanks, Fandango, for helping me rediscover this post:
PS I am glad your “tenderhooks” ended with no consequences, both pregnancy-test wise, and grammatically speaking.
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Tamales ? Not females ? Wow comfusing buddy
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Lol! I never heard that word either! funny though about you thinking the wordpress staff made a booboo!
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