[TheForge] Re: Heat treating

[Mike Spencer]

People have completely lost track of the original use of "temper",
which refered to moderating an extreme or finding a balance between
extremes. 

"Justice tempered with mercy" refers to moderating the (presumably)
rigid, utterly unbending demads of justice.

"Short tempered" uses "short" in the same sense as shortning in
cooking (shortning bread is crumbly, not chewey) or refering to a
batch of wrought iron as "hot short" meaning it crumbled when struck
at what would normally be forging temperature. "Short tempered" means
your personality is adjusted to the easily crumbled or shattered end
of the scale and away from malleability.

Even my WNCD gets it wrong, giving as meanings of "temper" (verb) (1)
to soften hardened steel by reheating or (2) to harden steel
by reheating and cooling in oil.

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^