Re: Help with collocations, please

Nick Spalding wrote:
> Glenn Knickerbocker wrote, in
> <7sub44tnqoqv67pp4aqnmk8oismnpl7iq2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> on Wed, 04 Jun 2008
> 01:25:36 -0400:

[to do the chambermaid is to make the bed yourself]

> Many years ago, ca. 1960, there was a letter in The Times from
> someone who had spent time as a volunteer in a refugee camp in some
> devastated part of Europe shortly after the war.  In the bumf they
> were handed before going was 'Volunteers will be expected to make
> their own beds'.  On arrival they were given wood, saw, hammer and
> nails.

It may have been the norm in the past, at least in some places. 
Didn't Barbara Allen want her bed made long and narrow?  This argues 
that it was made up from scratch, although maybe without framing 
tools.