Hi all - I heard a phrase used yesterday that reminded me of one of my favorite etymologies ever: "to be at loggerheads." This may well be folk etymology, as I've heard a couple of different versions of it, but: A loggerhead is a metal ball on a metal shaft, attached to a wooden handle (picture a spear, but with a ball rather than a point). On this, the versions I've heard agree. The more common versions go from this to say that:

Loggerheads were used on ships in the age of sail, and were heated red-hot in the ship's kitchen fire (or smithy perhaps) and used to heat tar/pitch for caulking the ship's seams, so that there wouldn't be lots of little fires needed around the ship (a bad thing on a wooden ship, especially a warship carrying lots of gunpowder). When sailors wanted to settle a quarrel, they would fight with these implements, and were thus "at loggerheads."

A google search turned up the following, from an unreliable source: To mix a drink called a "Flip", strong beer was mixed with sugar and rum and stirred with a red hot poker, called a loggerhead. Bar-room brawls were often settled using these pokers as weapons.

So - I've shared one of my favorites - any others.

Oh - I read another recently, and wondered about its validity. The idea is that in the old (Jewish, but unclear in the text) tradition in Palestine of sacrificing goats to God, one would be allowed to run off into the desert, carrying off all the people's sins. Any thoughts on this one?

p.s. - google turned up this:

Scapegoat
The result of a mistranslation of the Old Testament by William Tyndale in
1530. He mistakenly confused the Hebrew word "azazal," the name of a
Caanonite demon, with "ez-ozel," meaning, "the goat the departs."
Leviticus 16:8 discusses how goats should be sacrificed to God as a
sin-offering, and another should be given to Azazel and set free in the
wilderness, for the sins of the people.

Interesting. Anyway - favorite etymologies, y'all?