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Another word I haven't seen for quite a while:
"'I conquered 'em, spectacularly,' goes on King Shane, 'and then I went at 'em with economical politics, law, sleight-of-hand, and a kind of New England ethics and parsimony. Every Sunday, or as near as I can guess at it, I preach to 'em in the council-house (I'm the council) on the law of supply and demand. I praise supply and knock
demand. I use the same text every time. You wouldn't think, W. D.,' says Shane, 'that I had poetry in me, would you?'"
Webster's 1913 Dictionary
Definition: \Par"si*mo*ny\, n. [L. parsimonia, parcimonia; cf.
parcere to spare, parsus sparing: cf. F. parcimonie.]
Closeness or sparingness in the expenditure of money; --
generally in a bad sense; excessive frugality; niggardliness.
--Bacon.
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Yes, I do like parsimony and, even better, parsimonious, which is great fun to say and doesn't have anything to do, I suppose, with parsnips and parsley.
Cross-thread ref: jheem just pointed out that there's a linguistic connection among such words as souse, salt and salad. I don't suppose parsley slides in there, too? Probably not, but I'm just wondering.
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Dear WW: If a parson committed simony, would that make him guilty of parsimony?
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That'd be neat, but parsley is from ME persley from OE petersilie from VL petrosilium from Greek petros 'stone' plus selinon 'celery'.
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Stone celery? Why 'stone'? How interesting. But why 'stone'? Certainly nothing to do with rocks?
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Not sure. I'll look into it further. Could be a folk etymology redo of some loanword into Greek.
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