Nearly right, wordwind:

http://www.word-detective.com/back-k2.html#eavesdrop

Bingley

Dear gk: The double post was an accident, and I could not get clean delete of either. So I changed header
and message,just to escape your using accident to needle me.

What's also interesting is that "blackguard" is pronounced "blaggered" (hard 'g' as in "buggered").

Just to be mischievous, analogous to "eavesdrop" I propose a coinage "ellpeep".
Let's see if any of you can guess what that refers to. An amazing experience
makes me remember the only time I accidentally experienced it.

This is a jaw-dropping seeing word.

analogous to "eavesdrop" I propose a coinage "ellpeep"

Analogous to the shift from drip to drop in eavesdrop will there be a shift from something (what we must guess) to peep?

I would, by way of getting started, guess that the ell is an extension to a house meaning that you were around an interior corner when you were ellpeeping.

Aha! The original is ellpoop. You were sitting on the throne in a newly built extension of a house (possibly an upgrade from the former outhouse) when you discovered you could overhear the conversation going on in the plumbibly adjacent kitchen.

Huh? Huh? Am I right?

Dear Faldage: Lots of New England houses had ells. Frequently windows were close to intersection of the ell. My mother changed the placement of furniture in my bedroom, which was one part of ell. She put my dresser with mirror in the corner of the room at ninety degrees to window close to the ell. The maid had the room on the other side of the ell, with her bed at ninety degrees to window. I was asleep, when light from her room reflected from mirror of my dresser and woke me up. She was nude sitting crosslegged on her bed close to her lamp clipping her toenails, with the promised land in full view. My only and unsought experience with ellpeeping.

But, Dr. Bill! Where's the analogy to eavesdrip => eavesdrop?

In NY, and in Chicago, and tokyo, and elsewhere i am sure, you can elpeep -- Elavated trains are often at the same height as 2 floor windows.. and as the train goes by each window, you have a scant second to peer into other lives.. sometimes you can do the same from the station platform waiting for a train.

this kind of view is used in the play Twelve Angry Men-- one of the witnesses to a crime witnessed it from an passing train...

Dear of troy: Sixty years ago the medical schools in Boston provided house visits by junior medical students to the slum areas. I delivered a baby in an upstairs front room with my back close to window because no other light available, and elevated train stopped at station outside, with passengers very much interested in proceedings. The patient said she didn't give a damn, none of the passengers knew her.

Dear Faldage: Don't be a drip.

Dear Dr. Bill: I'll not be a drip if you'll not be a poop.

The best analogy, no matter how good, is a bad analogy and the worst analogy, no matter how bad, is a good analogy.

      - Tinker Tim Galloway

Dear Faldage: thanks for making an anu-type red-herring word out of "anal-ogy".

red-herring word out of "anal-ogy"

Only you, Dr. Bill.