Could be--the rocks would provide drainage so the posts wouldn't rot.
The derivation is from French pierraille, a "mass of broken or small stones, rubble, ballast" (Cassell's). Pierre-perdue is closer to a synonym for riprap.
Good question. So far as I can figure, the word appears mainly in documents on mining and drilling, so maybe they're meant for seating posts or some such? Just a guess.
Ah, see? That's what Wordie's all about--prettifying our nomenclature. :-D
Mollusque, from what I can find, this word was apparently coined in the 1800s to describe "a mass of stones filling a ditch and covered with clay" (from E. H. Knight's The Practical Dictionary of Mechanics, 1874–77); riprap is apparently a foundation of stones built as a breakwater, revetment, embankment, etc. Nothing on the actual use of a pierelle.
Because the rain here can come in sudden downpours, I often see these contraptions: under a downpipe, a circle of large stones filled in with a pile of pebbles, set in a drainage ditch. It works to prevent the rainwater scouring a giant erosion-hole in the ground and saves the cost of putting in an expensive/ugly big concrete gully trap. I would be happy to call one of these a pierelle. I'll have to find a landscape gardener or two and find out what they would call it.
We should have a Wordie gathering somewhere. And do things like dig ditches and fill them with stones. And then instruct passers-by on the appropriate nomenclature.
In English "pierelle" seems to exist only in dictionaries. OED2 lists it as obsolete, with the only citation from another dictionary. Other than that, a Google Books search found it in the Century Dictionary CDC1 and a couple of mining glossaries.
Could be--the rocks would provide drainage so the posts wouldn't rot.
The derivation is from French pierraille, a "mass of broken or small stones, rubble, ballast" (Cassell's). Pierre-perdue is closer to a synonym for riprap.
Good question. So far as I can figure, the word appears mainly in documents on mining and drilling, so maybe they're meant for seating posts or some such? Just a guess.
Thanks, reesetee. I wonder what purpose the clay serves?
Ah, see? That's what Wordie's all about--prettifying our nomenclature. :-D
Mollusque, from what I can find, this word was apparently coined in the 1800s to describe "a mass of stones filling a ditch and covered with clay" (from E. H. Knight's The Practical Dictionary of Mechanics, 1874–77); riprap is apparently a foundation of stones built as a breakwater, revetment, embankment, etc. Nothing on the actual use of a pierelle.
I have one of these in my backyard. Before today, I called it "that ditch full of stones".
Thank you, Wordie, for once again prettifying my nomenclature!
Because the rain here can come in sudden downpours, I often see these contraptions: under a downpipe, a circle of large stones filled in with a pile of pebbles, set in a drainage ditch. It works to prevent the rainwater scouring a giant erosion-hole in the ground and saves the cost of putting in an expensive/ugly big concrete gully trap. I would be happy to call one of these a pierelle. I'll have to find a landscape gardener or two and find out what they would call it.
How many Wordies does it take to fill a ditch?
Perhaps differentiated by the size of the ditch in question?
So how does pierelle different from riprap?
The Wordie answer to international Sketch Crawl days?
We should have a Wordie gathering somewhere. And do things like dig ditches and fill them with stones. And then instruct passers-by on the appropriate nomenclature.
Thanks, mollusque. You beat me to it.
In English "pierelle" seems to exist only in dictionaries. OED2 lists it as obsolete, with the only citation from another dictionary. Other than that, a Google Books search found it in the Century Dictionary CDC1 and a couple of mining glossaries.
Gosh, I wonder why this is obsolete.
(Obsolete) A heap of stones filling a ditch.