barrow/borrow

Rudolph C Troike rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU
Tue Oct 10 08:14:48 UTC 2000


I've heard only the form "borrow ditch" in Texas used to describe the
ditch along a roadside created by taking the soil out to form the roadbed.
However, I always suspected it of being a folk-etymological back-formation
from "bar-ditch", which was the form I heard first. (Phonologically, there
would be no difference there in the vowel to hinder this identification.)

        Rudy



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