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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I picked up one of Garrison Keillor’s books on the Lake Woebegone folk the other day and decided to chase up the word woebegone. It seems a contradiction at first sight in that instead of meaning woe being banished (begone meaning: go away immediately) it means appearing woeful. The “begone in this case derives from the past participle of the Old English “bego” meaning surround.
At the back of my mind I feel that there is at least one other word ending in “~begone”, but I can’t capture it. I have also tried to find other words derived from “bego” but with no success. It’s really bugging me, can anyone help?
dxb
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at least one other word ending in “~begone”, but I can’t capture it. I have also tried to find other words derived from “bego”Hmmm, are you sure you're not thinking of bygone, David? Was the first thing that came to mind for me. I've never heard of anything bygone except for times or days, come to think of it. Why wouldn't you talk of a bygone bus?  You also get begotten, used mainly (only?) in Biblical phrases. But that's another red herring (on a red bike) isn't it? Water-muddying Fish
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quinion has a long article about "woebegone": http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-woe1.htmHe says that the verb "bego" has been obsolete for four hundred years.This means it is unlikely that there are other words compounded with it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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except that sad phrase you hear at the end of a party:
beer-begone....
formerly known as etaoin...
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beer-begone"Arrr, where be the beer, Jim-lad?" "The beer be gone, Cap'n." "The beer be gone, Cap'n!""Shut up, parrot." "Shut up, parrot! AAAaaWwwkghk---"If memory serves, beer is named after bir, the Saxon for barley. I live in a place called Barcombe, possible derived from Bircham = "barley field". Beer was very important to those Saxons, bless 'em 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Beer, be gone! In a yellow stream down the post.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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a recent article in the NYTimes, about beer, speculated that agraculture grew up not so babies could have a steady supply of wheat and oats and barley for bread, and porriage, and soup, but so their dad's could have a steady supply of grain for beer..
they suggested, all of civilization arose, because guys like their beer... funny thing is, the more you think about it, the more sense it makes.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear of troy: I'll bet grains were cultivated thousands of years before process of brewing was discovered. Wine making would have been discovered by accident, but not beer making. Speaking of accidental discoveries, I think charles Lamb's Dissertation on Roast Pig is a classic. http://www.creighton.edu/~jwilli/elia/pig.htm
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they suggested, all of civilization arose, because guys like their beerCertainly makes sense to me. Would they get out of their sleeping sacks, and more importantly, work as a co-operative team, just for bread and water? I think not. Let's drink to our ancestors!
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Wine making would have been discovered by accident,
but not beer makingDisagree, Bill - all it takes is a "soup" made of crushed grains, water and perhaps a bit of honey. The air gets to it, thus natural yeasts, and bingo. For sure it would taste bloody awful to start with, but then it's the long process of refinement, which includes the serendipitous discovery of malt-making. There's a fine line between accident and invention, as witness your Roast Pig story
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