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#42082 09/18/01 02:07 PM
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wwh Offline
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At the second site, I ran into a new word:
fossicker

In Australia or New Zealand especially, one who informally searches for
gold by "reworking" abandoned piles of earth which may have already
been depleted of the mineral. To ferret out; to rummage for something of
value with a goal of making a profit.

A fossicker is also a bothersome person, one who busies about and
creates trouble.

Fossicking is quite an enjoyable hobby in Australia and New Zealand,
parts of the world that are home to a wide range of fossils and minerals.

Origin is unknown.

So in hijacking words from tsuwm? wwftd, I have been fossicking. Sound a bit naughty.


#42083 09/18/01 02:41 PM
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In another thread, "salt cellars" were mentioned. I did not realize that this is a tautology.

Furthermore, those who were wealthy enough to have saltcellars [small
dishes used for holding and dispensing salt] just as recently as 300 years
ago were deemed to have "status," and they were looked highly upon and
esteemed by their "underlings"! Contrary to frequent belief, a saltcellar is
not a location for storing salt but rather it is merely a "compound
redundancy," that is, tautology, for the word "salt":

Cellar (as in saltcellar) comes from the Anglo-Norman saler [and later
seler], another word for saltcellar, a word derived from the Latin sal and
the corresponding verb, salere, to add salt to.



#42084 09/18/01 04:33 PM
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"thy micturations are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on
a lurgid bee."


As consuelo has already noted, the indicated word requies its own color.



#42085 09/18/01 07:25 PM
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work these days takes up more time.. i have much, much longer commute -- there is this distraction about town. and now i don't even have a simple dictionary about.. and connections are iffy, and i keep getting dumped..

i look up when i can.. my two favorite words..for etymology
kaliedoscope. which breaks out pretty easy into its roots..

and seat/chair/see (as in the Holy See).. very interesting.. a round robin collection.


#42086 09/19/01 02:21 AM
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Related to this is the etymology of "steward" from stig = [pig]sty and wearden = watch, keep. A steward therefore was originally the guardian of the pigs.


#42087 09/19/01 02:33 AM
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#42088 09/19/01 01:26 PM
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WORD HISTORY:
Hard-riding marshals of the Wild West in pursuit of criminals reemphasize the
relationship of the word marshal with horses. The Germanic ancestor of our
word marshal is a compound made up of *marhaz, “horse” (related to the
source of our word mare), and *skalkaz, “servant,” meaning as a whole
literally “horse servant,” hence “groom.” The Frankish descendant of this
Germanic word, *marahskalk, came to designate a high royal official and also
a high military commander—not surprising given the importance of the horse in
medieval warfare. Along with many other Frankish words, *marahskalk was
borrowed into Old French by about 800; some centuries later, when the
Normans established a French-speaking official class in England, the Old
French word came with them. In English, marshal is first recorded in 1218, as
a surname (still surviving in the spelling Marshall); its first appearance as a
common noun was in 1258, in the sense “high officer of the royal court.” The
word was also applied to this high royal official's deputies, who were officers
of courts of law, and it continued to designate various officials involved with
courts of law and law enforcement, including the horseback-riding marshals we
are familiar with in the United States.


#42089 09/19/01 01:43 PM
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I love it -- more bread etymology! Bakers unite! Dyslexics untie!


#42090 09/19/01 01:49 PM
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That's our roll in life, Alex. I sometimes think we have created a new social science on this board - I would like to christen it Eatermology


#42091 09/19/01 02:01 PM
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