Talk:sandy

Name

Sandy is a boy's name?

That's Sandy with a capital S. Equinox ◑ 18:40, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

What does sandy mean in Henry James's The Real Thing?

In a short story by Henry James, The Real Thing, an artist who is going to make the illustrations for a novel says about one of his models (the good lady):

«And indeed I could see the slipshod rearrangements of stale properties--the stories I tried to produce pictures for without the exasperation of reading them--whose sandy tracts the good lady might help to people.»

In this context the word sandy does not seem to be used as any of the current definitions in sandy. Does anybody know what does Henry James meant with it? Thanks. --81.33.193.164 01:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I am also struggling to understand. I can't seem to find any 19th century uses of this word that fit. But it sounds negative...

A sandy tract would be a desert. Perhaps it's metaphorical here. "People" is the verb, meaning "populate". "Properties" would, I think, be scenes on the stage, or something theatrical. Equinox ◑ 18:40, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Slightly different sense?

Here, the hourglass is filled with sand, not like or sprinkled with sand. Equinox ◑ 18:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• 1607, Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness

  That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, / To untell the days, and to redeem these hours.