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Recently, a senior academic at Sydney University was heard to say "I'm running around like a hairy goat". Now this could just be a Quirky Dude living up to his job description, but he insisted this was a genuine, established, if possibly archaic expression. The Linguistics Department at another university is stumped. Any ideas, folks?
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In the Old Testament, the original Hebrew refers to a male goat as a hairy goat (as opposed to the female goat). The scape goat onto whom the sins of the whole people were put on the Day of Atonement was always a male goat. It was driven out into the desert to die. Thus, I opine, that to run around like a hairy goat is to run around like the scapegoat in the desert, trying not to be killed by wild beasts.
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hircine - like a goat; having a goatish smell hirsute - hairy; shaggy coincidence? maybe...  oh, and here's a citation from the OED which will probably just muddy the waters:
1960 G. Slatter Gun in my Hand ii. 21 An' it ran like a hairy goat an' I did me chips.
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Hi Slice -- welcome to the board.
Sidney Baker's "The drum" (1959) has:
hairy goat, run like a (used esp. of racehorses): To perform badly in a race.
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paulb found: hairy goat, run like a (used esp. of racehorses): To perform badly in a race.Maybe all the hair makes for really bad aerodynamics? 
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hairodynamicsThanks, mav. Nice to see that someone is keeping the flame alive in TEd's absence. In my hubris I seem to have taken it upon myself in recent days to bring things together. I wish to continue this by bringing together this "hairy goat" thread with the "cognomen" thread. I have a question for our Latin scholars. Almost a quarter of a century ago, I read Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God". One of the few things to stick with me was some prophecy an oracle uttered, which centred around "Caesar" meaning "hairy one". Is this true? Is "Caesar" derived from some Latin word for hairy? Or was Bob just acting the goat?
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max, what is this? you have come to harry Caesar and not to praise him??
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I remember seeing the statement that there was a tradition of Caesar referring to a surgical delivery of an infant through an incision in the dying woman's abdomen, that there was a law authorizing this to be attempted when there were indications that the fetus was still living.
That operation is therefore called a caesarean section.
Doesn't Caesar come from a root meaning to cut? Corrupted to incision, etc.?
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>from a root meaning to cut
oh, bill! a hair]/i]cut?!
*<8o)
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That operation is therefore called a caesarean section
As I understand it Big Julie was himself ripped untimely from his mother's womb.
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A link to history of caesarean section Lots of good stuff
Cesarian Section -- A Brief History Home Page
Exhibitions and Public Programs. [NOTE ... [Cover]. CESAREAN
SECTION -- A BRIEF HISTORY. Plate ...
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/cesarean_1.html [More Results From: www.nlm.nih.gov]
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As I understand it Big Julie was himself ripped untimely from his mother's womb.
That's right, Faldage, push my buttons! Get me ranting about the lousy cheating in Macbeth's plot again!
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Thank you Dr. Bill for dispelling the demons of disinformation with the torch of truth.
Of course, the final answer is, once again: "Well, maybe, we're not quite sure."
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Cae[sar 7sc4z!r8, (Gaius) Julius 5L Caesar, said to be < caesus, pp. of caedere, to cut down (see 3CIDE), but prob. of Etr orig.6 c. 100-44 B.C.; Rom. general & statesman; dictator (49-44) of the Roman Empire
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caesus, pp. of caedere, to cut down
From which we might guess that the Sybil's ravings contained a pun. If indeed that which Graves used was historical fact and not ravings of his own or Seneca's(?) imagination.
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Caesar, said to be < caesus, pp. of caedere, to cut down, but prob. of Etr orig. OK, so who do we believe? Is Caesar from caesaries -ei f. [hair , a head of hair]., as Robert Graves obviously thought, or is it from caedere, or from Etruscan. Where in Hades is NicholasW when you need him? He strikes me as the kind of guy who probably reads the daily news in Etruscan.
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how brutal -- a logomachy over Caesar!
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or from Etruscan...Never mind, Max, I've gone off the whole idea - I'll have the Waldorf instead!
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