You see that's the trouble with Stafford ... there just aren't any shops where you can get some decent
'Hose' anymore.
An advert from my old Stafford Handbook published in 1906 (price Sixpence.) As near as I can tell this building was roughly where Boots is now. The shelf in the upper left corner is where the HSBC Bank is now, although it would have been Brookfields shop back then.
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I fixed a washing machine in Prague for a friend's sister - the sister's English was very good, but it was American English.
I was confident that the machine would now work, if it had a water supply, but the flexible pipe to connect to the supply pipe was not available.
I said to her "This should work now, all you need to do is put the hose in behind it"
This was met with a 'funny look' and a dictionary was produced - her interpretation of my statement was that she should stuff some socks behind the machine - possibly in an effort to reduce vibrational effects..?
I believe that the original canvas water hoses were made on the same machinery that made 'hose', in the clothing sense, hence the term being used for flexible fluid piping.
i knew an old boy, born in 1916, who still referred to socks as 'hose' up to 2015...