INGs

Arnold Zwicky zwicky at STANFORD.EDU
Tue Jan 13 17:42:54 UTC 2009


On Jan 13, 2009, at 7:52 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote on "too-ing and
fro(w)-ing":

>  (I was
> familiar with the base "to and fro").

the OED has a "to and fro" entry, with this subentry:

   E. as v. (only in pres. pple. and vbl. n. toing and froing, rarely
to-and-froing)

with the meaning: intr. To pass to and fro, to go hither and thither.
(one cite has "to-ings and fro-ings".)

so the OED recognizes the variant with -ing only on the final element,
but not (of course) the spellings "too" and "frow".

arnold

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