On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Jeanne Surber <surberj@earthlink.net> wrote: > Well -- they were "flat" alright, and after using one for several hours the user was not only "sad" but had a sore arm and back. I speak from experience! My mother called them "sad irons" as had her mother before her. Not sure why. But if one had a good arm and some skill and practice, they did a good job. Sad is from the Old English, meaning "sated," heavy with fullness, and came to mean simply heavy. "Saddened," or heavy with grief, came into use in the 1600s, though the use of sad as heavy continued with its connection to objects well into the Twentieth Century. Michael -- "Let our people travel light and free on their bicycles." - Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire