[PLUG-TALK] Origin of expressions

[Russell Senior]

>>>>> "wes" == wes  <plug at the-wes.com> writes:

wes> On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 10:26 PM John Jason Jordan <johnxj at gmx.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Jul 2021 20:41:39 -0700 Denis Heidtmann
>> <denis.heidtmann at gmail.com> dijo:
>> 
>> >This is esp. for John.  >We received a mailing which had the
>> following.  I wonder if it is at >all accurate.
>> 
>> It sounds accurate, but most of it I had never heard before, so I
>> cannot say.
>> 
>> Fascinating stuff!
>> 
>> 
wes> while I have no particular desire to spoil a funny story, since
wes> accuracy was mentioned, I did look it up and found this:

wes> https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/life-in-the-1500s/

A long time ago, on public radio, there was a brief segment, I think on
one of the news shows, where John Ciardi would explore the etymology of
various words and expressions. I found it fascinating and as a result
someone gave me a couple of his books, e.g.:

  https://www.amazon.com/Good-Words-You-Dictionary-American/dp/0060156910

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ciardi

When he'd debunk some made-up etymology for some expression, i.e. one
that didn't survive a modicum of research, he'd called it "junk
etymlogy". A classic junk etymology example is esparagus, with the cheap
made-up origin being some phonetically seemingly-plausible "sparrow
grass". After you have been exposed to some of these, you are
immediately suspicious of various too-cute etymologic claims, and you
start demanding evidence.

Many of his debunkings came by way of the Oxford English Dictionary,
where researchers report first usages of words and expressions, with
citations. This led me to, at some point, buy a $200+ Compact Oxford
English Dictionary (Amazon says close to $500 today), which was printed
9-up (that is, 9 pages of the original many-volume version, on each
page) and came with a powerful hemi-spheric magnifying lens so you could
read the tiny print. Despite the claim of "Compact", the version was a
large and heavy book which is mostly gathering dust today, but is
occasionally hauled out to settle some family debate, if the internet
can't immediately resolve it.


-- 
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net