From: Jim Beale (beale@uconect.net)
Date: Tue Mar 24 1998 - 00:08:43 EST
At 3:57 PM -0600 3/23/98, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>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."
And that was from Paul Dixon's desperate question about how to
rid his Attic of the pesky SKIOUROS. The question of how the
SKIOUROS got into the Attic is left as an exercise. . .
KAI TALANTWi DEXIOTHS KAI NOOS STAQMHSETAI
;-)
In Christ,
Jim
Wisdom is the principle thing,
therefore get wisdom.
-- Solomon
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