Eggcorn Forum

The word glean comes from O.Fr. glener, from L.L. glennare “make a collection”, related to L. glutino, “stick together”. The social role of the poor gleaners, who would collect scattered grain after the harvesters had passed, is now unfamiliar to most. Millet’s famous painting The Gleaners, that portrays gleaners sympathetically, was shocking to the jumpy French upper class, apparently. It sold for a derisory sum during his lifetime, then for 100 times as much upon his death. Self-proclaimed gleaners still exist in France, and are just as poorly regarded.

My eldest brother was an enthusiastic gleaner. One of his favourite pastimes was collecting great stuff out of the town dump in the small backwoods town where he lived. I still have some classic items that he scored that way. He cleaned up, you might say. Others think that gleaners are cleaners who choose the wheat and discard the chaff.

Lucky readers, armed with insights cleaned from this book
http://www.amazon.ca/Tap-Dancing-Work-P … 1591845734

To this end, my Article, using insights cleaned from research in sociology and social psychology
http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_ … index.html