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.

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?

hairodynamics?

hairodynamics


Thanks, 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?

max, what is this? you have come to harry Caesar and not to praise him??

YCLIU, if you but knew where to look.

Try: http://cawley.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookup.pl?stem=caesar&ending=

That's the page with the answer, which is yes

The page where you ask the question is:

http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm

http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm


Many thanks - added to Favourites.

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.?

>from a root meaning to cut

oh, bill! a hair]/i]cut?!
*<8o)