A couple months ago I was reading P. D. James' Death of an Expert Witness, when I encountered the phrase "The sight never palled..."
When I read, I always use for a bookmark a strip of firm paper (cut from old Christmas cards) wide enough to write words and notes on. I have finally gotten around to looking up the phrase, which I couldn't quite parse at the time. Is it related to "pale?" What is "to pall?"
A Google search turned up the phrase "the sight never palled" in just a few other works (one by Frederick Forsyth), so I turned to some online etymology and dictionary sources:
As a verb: "become tiresome," 1700, from Middle English pallen "to become faint, fail in strength" (late 14c.), shortened form of appallen "to dismay, fill with horror or disgust."
As a noun: Old English pæll "rich cloth or cloak, purple robe, altar cloth," from Latin pallium "cloak, coverlet, covering," in Tertullian, the garment worn by Christians instead of the Roman toga; related to pallo "robe, cloak," palla "long upper garment of Roman women," perhaps from the root of pellis "skin." Notion of "cloth spread over a coffin" (mid-15c.) led to figurative sense of "dark, gloomy mood" (1742).
Now it's becoming clearer - pallbearers.
The Online Free Dictionary goes into more detail. In addition to "become tiresome" the word may indicate to "become distasteful or unpleasant" or "to satiate or cloy."
Now, on to the other words. The novel started with a murder in a "clunch pit." The image at the top of the post is of the wall of a chapel in Surrey with a checkerboard pattern of clunch and flint.
Clunch is a traditional building material of chalky limestone rock used mainly in eastern England and Normandy. Clunch distinguishes itself from archetypal forms of limestone by being softer in character when cut, such as resembling chalk in lower density, or with minor clay-like components. [although note:] The term has been sometimes used more generically, in other parts of England for any soft and aggregate-based vernacular building stone which has been used as a cheaper, inferior substitute for stronger stone.
One of the characters in the book was wearing a twinset - "a matching set of a cardigan and a (usually) short-sleeved jumper or pullover. The twinset first appeared in the 1940s and is now considered a classic wardrobe staple.Twinsets have been associated most closely with women's work wardrobes during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in secretarial work or teaching, but were occasionally viewed as too casual for more conservative workplaces where dress suits were preferred. However, their popularity was largely driven by Hollywood stars such as Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn who were frequently seen wearing them on and off the set.And finally, moquette.
Moquette, derived from the French word for carpet, is a type of woven pile fabric in which cut or uncut threads form a short dense cut or loop pile. As well as giving it a distinctive velvet like feel, the pile construction is particularly durable, and ideally suited to applications such as public transport... Moquette is famous for being used on London Transport's vehicles, particularly the seats of London Underground's Tube trains. During the decades of the many railway companies, there were some ten moquette manufacturers in the UK.You learn something every day.