flutterbys

[George Thompson]

A radio commercial for the NY State Lotteries is taking the theme
of "amazing facts" (or some such).  At one part, the voice reads four
or five names and states that they are the names of species of
butterflies.  It next states that it is an amazing fact that
butterflies were originally called flutterbys.

This is a notion that isn't supported by the OED.  Nonetheless, it
isn't original to the State Lottery bookies, either.  I've come upon
it before.  And no doubt it's a prettier thought than the etymology
endorsed half-heartedly by the OED, that "the insect was so called
from the appearance of its excrement".

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org