SLITHER, n.--another word with two (or 1.5) mommies?

[Victor Steinbok]

Ever since George Galloway had echoed Harold Wilson (30 years earlier,
in mocking Edward Heath) in describing the Bush administration as "a
shiver looking for a spine to run up", I can't look at "shiver" the same
way. Oddly enough, most online quote collections ascribe the line to
Paul Keating--wrong country, wrong time period.

It seems one source got it right--and that was a year before Galloway's
memorable speech (also marked by repeated use of "complete cock-up",
which was a novelty in US at the time).

http://goo.gl/OVzfTa

Now, I don't know who coined it first, but I know it wasn't Galloway or
Keating. It's possible it started with Wilson. It's more likely some
other pol said it and it was retold by Wilson. Or it's been around even
longer.

VS-)

On 10/8/2013 8:44 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> On Oct 7, 2013, at 3:04 PM, Brenda Lester wrote:
>
>> sliver:
>> splinter; shiver, slice
>>
> Oh, right, I forgot about "shiver", n.  That's another culprit in the multiple-causation game, but more for glass than for ginger.
>
> LH
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Sent: Monday, October 7, 2013 1:45 PM
>> Subject: SLITHER, n.--another word with two (or 1.5) mommies?
>>
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      SLITHER, n.--another word with two (or 1.5) mommies?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  From an online recipe (see antepenultimate recipe at http://www.loverofcreatingflavours.co.uk/tag/fish/page/2/):
>>
>> Ingredients
>> …
>> 1 inch fresh ginger, grated or sliced into thin slithers
>> …
>>
>> [+ Many other hits for "into (thin) slithers" from other recipes]
>>
>>
>> I thought this might be a reanalysis of one type or another ("sliver" under influence of snakes), but if so it seems to have happened awhile ago, back to old Ezra.  Here's the OED entry for SLITHER, n., 4b):
>>
>> Something smooth and slippery; a smoothly sliding mass; = SLIVER n.1 1.
>>
>> 1919   E. Pound Quia Pauper Amavi 40   If she goes in a gleam of Cos, in a slither of dyed stuff, There is a volume in the matter.
>> 1955   N. Nicholson Lakers xi. 188   Only after rain, when..the rocks are hung with slithers of water like lace curtains against the black slate.
>> 1966   G. Greene Comedians i. v. 153   Little fenced saucers of earth where a few palm-trees grew and slithers of water gleamed between.
>> 1981   Daily Tel. 27 May 15/1   Calvin Klein's newest dress is a slither of silk shaped simply like an overgrown T-shirt.
>>
>> None of these are quite the same as the slither of ginger, and I certainly couldn't imagine referring to a "sliver" of water.  "Slithers" of dyed stuff or slippery silk might be nonce nominalizations from the verb or adjective (many hits for "slithery silk").  But "slither of ginger"?  Maybe I've just led a sheltered life (as has the AHD, which only has "slithery movement or gait" for SLITHER, n.).
>>
>> Or perhaps the vector is the slither of eel, as in:
>>
>> The same goes for the unagi, which contains delicately marinated slithers of eel.
>> or
>> Smoked eel, carrot and camomile – laid upon a sweet smear of carrot are slithers of eel that are succulent, smoky and a little peppery.
>>
>>
>> LH
>>
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