Re: Da Mellon's boat still for sale

Martin a écrit :
> On Sun, 04 May 2008 23:36:15 +0200, lonchamp <floncham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> Martin a écrit :
>>
>>> The liftoff
>>> ... toc decollage ...
>>    top décollage
> 
> OK why "top"?

onomatopoeia used to pinpoint a precise moment of time (since 1859).
"Au 4ème top, il sera 6 h" (at the 4th top, it'll be 6), as used on the 
speaking clock and on French long-wave radio to broadcast time signal 
every hour to ****ps at sea (3 short pips and a longer one)

-- 
http://francois.lonchamp.free.fr
Un doigt de linguistique ... et un soupçon de voile