partly of silk and partly of wool or hair
 Ai-ee! Fairly uncomfortable, I should think.

Helen--nice to see you back; I noticed you were absent a while. Went to that thread and was promptly saddened by some names. I still miss Jazzo; remember that post he made, thanking some of the guys for mentoring him? I wish Wordwind would come back, though I seriously doubt it; and Bill certainly won't be back. Anyway--I was impressed with your post that said:
the word crocodile, curiously, is, at it's root, is related to the root word for sugar!

crocodile comes to english, from ME, and L. The ME cocodrille, is from MF, cocodrillus, an alteration of the latin crocodulus, which came from the Greek, krokodilos, (lizard/crocodile) from the greek roots of kroke (shingle, pebble) + drilos, worm.

the kroke of the greek is related to the sanskrit sarkara which also mean pebble(pebbles)

by an other route, sarkara moved to persian as shakar, and then to arabic as sukkar, and then dispersed throught italian and french (it still is surce in french)and into english as sugar!

the pebble meaning has to do with sugar's gritty quality, (very evident if you have ever spilled some!)and the same root shows up again in seersucker, (one of Anu's words with interesting etymologies) seersucker fabic comes from the persian, meaning milk and sugar.

who would have thought, sugar, seersucker, and crocodile, all related words at the root meaning? and are there other words with as much grit!