Boatloads?

Cockaigne is an old English and Renaissance word for a land of luxury, on the order of the Big Rock Candy Mountain or where the water tastes like wine. I don't even think it is etymologically connected with cocaine, but I may be wrong about that.
 
Thus spake Wikipedia: The word Cockaigne derives from Middle English cokaygne, traced to Middle French (pays de) cocaigne "(land of) plenty," ultimately adapted or derived from a word for a small sweet cake sold to children at a fair (OED).
 
I've actually posted on a lot of those same wines. But this is a bizarre piece--they don't tell you anything about the wines at all. In fact, they tell you more about the people who are tasting the wines than they do about the wines!

Talk about putting the horse before the cart.

They say they tasted 50 wines (curiously, the same as a Boatloads installment), but only mention a half dozen or so, most cursorily. Then they draw some vague conclusions ('oh, the whites sort of seem better than the reds...') which may or may not be supported by the evidence of all the other wines that they neglect to tell us about. Objection: hearsay!

Fail.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Thus spake Wikipedia: The word Cockaigne derives from Middle English cokaygne, traced to Middle French (pays de) cocaigne "(land of) plenty," ultimately adapted or derived from a word for a small sweet cake sold to children at a fair (OED).
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Why go to Wiki when the OED is online?
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Can non-subscribers use it?
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Interesting question. Maybe I can use it because my University has signed us all on. Usually, to get to things that you have to subscribe to, I have to go through my library site and I don't for the OED. So you might just give it a try. But having a University hook-up does pamper one's research needs.
 
Looks like it's subscribers only. Lucky duck.

Though the Dictionnaire de l'Acadmie Franaise is (progressively) online and is free. I think they're up to the P's. They've been at it for years.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Looks like it's subscribers only. Lucky duck.

Though the Dictionnaire de l'Acadmie Franaise is (progressively) online and is free. I think they're up to the late P's. They've been at it for years.
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I'll look up a word for you anytime.
 
But no one has said "rocks," "juice," "kick-ass," or "there will be no more bad vintages [in Bordeaux]" yet.
 
Nary a word about CULT MAILER HITS INBOX!!! or RETAILER CLOSES DOORS AND MAKES OFF WITH MY 2052 FUTURES CASH!!!

Doesn't sound eBobbish to me but maybe I'm checking out the wrong URL.
 
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