[geodeticman.5]

RM ....LOL.... I like that response... have I been....using the font size and colors..a little too much.... lol ? Your answer, RM, is correct ! "stem" for Q72 - from 'Too Late For Prayin' .

It's interesting to me, what with all the previous discussion of "stemming", that maybe Lightfoot himself is also defining it by alternately using its root - "stem" - the tide, or to , as in programming (there's a stretch) stem or stemming is to conflate, or condense, or reduce to its smallest recognizable form eg stemming gets "stemmed" in programming likely to "stem". And to stem the tide, websters says "

Main Entry: stem
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): stemmed; stem·ming
Etymology: Middle English (Scots) stemmen to keep a course, from stem (of a ship)
Date: 1593
1 : to make headway against (as an adverse tide, current, or wind)
2 : to check or go counter to (something adverse)
— stem·mer noun

so. to "stem" the tide in Q72's song, would literally be to make headway against the tide, but maybe metaphorically, in the song, 'to stem the tide of broken dreams' - would be to , as in #2 above in the definition = to check or to counter..the tide of.... broken dreams...etc... I wonder if that in any way leads to Lightfoots use of stemming ?

aha - in the Visual Thesaurus - which makes a map of synonyms or miildly related words the father way from the word of choice... stemming.. in this case.... very close to it..is quite simply (scottish) (which Lightfoot has said he is of Scots origin..) "to take" as "take the gold that falls in the bar" - whaddya think ? stem means the same thing as one of the visual thesaurus many, many synonyms, but take is close in proximiy in the word map to stem, so they say its a primary synonym...., Sounds reasonable to me.....for stemming gold....

Thanks RM lol i get it.....

~geo steve