Pseudo-acronyms

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:25 AM -0500 11/20/01, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>  > "NEWS" < 'North East West South'
>
>I was once cornered at a cocktail party by someone who _insisted_ that
>he had seen this etymology given in a 16th- or 17th-century source. The
>person claimed that he knew such etymologies were usually bogus, and
>was very surprised to see it in a source that early.
>
>He never got back to me with the source.
>
I wonder what those supposed 16th-17th century sources discovered for
the acronymic etymology of Fr. "nouvelles"...

larry