In the news - Tossers and prats need public help

[Wilson Gray]

I've heard that it's from "gardy-loo," a garbling of (Norman-? /
Anglo-?)French, _gardez-l'eau!_, "watch [out for] the water!" shouted
by people on upper stories to warn passers-by as they emptied their
slop jars, also known as "chamber pots," into the street below.

-Wilson

On 1/3/07, Alison Murie <sagehen at westelcom.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alison Murie <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: In the news - Tossers and prats need public help
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >* Ananova: *    *http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2141954.html?menu=
> >Tossers and prats need public help* Jan. 3, 2007
> >
> >The public are being challenged to find the origins of 40 well-known words
> >such as prat, wally and tosser.
> >
> >Editors of the Oxford English Dictionary also need to source words like
> >hoodie, dogging, pole dance, spiv and loo.
>  ~~~~~~~
> Loo?  It doesn't devolve from "watercloset" by way of "Waterloo"?
> AM
>
> ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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