We decided to put in an offer on a wonderful modern house in South-East Austin last night. Turns out we’re in a multiple offer situation and we just had to submit some crazy high numbers in the hope that we’ll get the house. On tenterhooks. Don’t know what tenterhooks are, but I’m on them.

---

Comments

ashley

2007-11-08T18:19:06.000Z

I think they are the hooks that they hang slabs of beef from. I could be totally wrong as I have not spent much time on a farm. I hope your bid is accepted! I used to think maybe including a picture of the family making the bid would be cool, I mean, how could someone turn down Stella?!

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2007-11-08T18:30:28.000Z

I actually looked it up on wikipedia. They’re the nails they stretch the selvage edge of woven wool across to prevent shrinkage as the wool dries.

Julie (www.juliesdramas.blogspot.com)

2007-11-08T18:30:43.000Z

They’re “tenderhooks”, I believe. They’re used for hanging meat, as Ashley said. Let’s consult Wikipedia. Oops, you were right, but Ashley and I were wrong: Tenterhooks were used as far back as the fourteenth century in the process of making woollen cloth. After the cloth had been woven it still contained oil from the fleece and some dirt. It was cleaned in a fulling mill and then had to be dried carefully as wool shrinks. To prevent this shrinkage, the wet cloth would be placed on a large wooden frame, a “tenter”, and left to dry outside. The lengths of wet cloth were stretched on the tenter (from the Latin “tendere”, to stretch) using hooks (nails driven through the wood) all around the perimeter of the frame to which the cloth’s edges (selvages) were fixed so that as it dried the cloth would retain its shape and size. At one time it would have been common in manufacturing areas to see tenter-fields full of these frames. By the mid-eighteenth century the phrase “on tenterhooks” came into use to mean being in a state of uneasiness, anxiety, or suspense, stretched like the cloth on the tenter. I love Wikipedia. And for some reason, I have this feeling that Tara would have known what Tenterhooks were.

Tara (http://rabid-fraggle.blogspot.com/)

2007-11-09T01:16:56.000Z

Yeah, Tara had no idea what a tenterhook was, or why you would be on one. But now we all know, and knowing is half the battle. Good luck with the house bid!

M1EK (http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/)

2007-11-09T16:35:46.000Z

Congratulations. I thought from reading recent posts that you were building a house somewhere?

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2007-11-09T16:43:11.000Z

We were. I’ll write a post on it. Short story is that we were building a house because we didn’t think there was anything in Austin that we could afford and that we liked.