the.com/auger
a corkscrew that eats earth instead of cork, drilling holes with patient violence.
means A tool with a spiral blade for boring holes in wood, soil, or ice, turned to pull material out as it digs.
from A famous slip of the tongue baked into English: the word was once 'nauger,' from Old English 'nafogar' — literally a 'nave-borer,' the tool for piercing the nave (hub) of a wheel. Over time 'a nauger' was misheard as 'an auger,' and the wandering 'n' jumped ship for good — the same trick that gave us 'an apron' from 'a napron.'
- ancient origin
- Roman carpenters used screw augers two thousand years ago
- ice fishing
- hand augers carve through frozen lakes for anglers
- word drift
- originally a nauger, the n migrated into a
- giant cousins
- earth augers dig holes wide as people
- shell namesake
- auger seashells are spiraled like the tool itself
archimedes screw — ancient spiral device used to lift water, described by archimedes around 250 bce
earth auger — hand-powered drilling tool with twisted flutes, commonly used for fence post holes and soil sampling
kansas auger murders — serial killer john joubert used an auger as weapon in nebraska killings 1983-1984