From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 23 1998 - 16:57:43 EST
At 2:57 PM -0600 3/23/98, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>At 10:31 AM 3/23/98 -0800, Allison Sanders wrote:
>
>>> What meaning do *you* assign to the English
>>>"skivvies"?
>>
>>Very Intersting...actually, I've only heard the
>>word used to refer to, well, ummm, (whispering) boxer
>>shorts.
>
>OK, time for some creative etymology.
Jonathan's was creative enough (I can't believe I started this with my
innocent little question yesterday about "eschew"!); I think perhaps it's
worth recalling the one piece of fascinating etymology that Jim Beale and I
discovered a couple years back: do you know what Greek word "squirrel"
derives from?
Give up? It's SKIOUROS, from SKIA and OUROS: "shadow-tail."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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