NYT on Daniel Cassidy

[Grant Barrett]

On Nov 9, 2007, at 11:11, Wilson Gray wrote:

> FWIW, I agree with Cassidy that the source of "galore" is Irish _go
> leor_ [g@ l'or], as does the OED On Line. "Even a stopped clock has
> the correct time twice a day," to coin a phrase.

He does indeed get a few things right, but there he does not cite his
sources--which he could hardly do, seeing as how he derides and mocks
works such as the OED and people such as non-Irish lexicographers.

Not citing sources means that his few better entries are nearly as
bad as the incorrect ones. He almost universally fails to take the
headword back as far as it will go and fails to establish links to
older and other forms.

For example, his entry on "dick" 'detective' seems to prefer that the
word comes from the "eye" logo used by Pinkerton detectives (I say
"seems" because his logic is often impossible to follow):

"The Pinkerton's world-famous logo was the giant 'All-Seeing Eye.'
The Pinkerton private 'eye' and labor union spy was christened a
*dick* (*dearc*, an eye) by the Irish-speaking subjects of its gaze:
Molly Maguires, Fenians, Knights of Labor, and Wobblies."

But he has only 1928 as his earliest source (1908 in OED and HDAS),
doesn't address the Hiberno-English travelers' cant suggested by
HDAS, fails to mention "keep dick" in the English Dialect Dictionary
which (according to HDAS; I can't double-check because Archive.org
doesn't have EDD Vol. II) cites it from Northern Ireland, and makes
no connection to the "deek" 'to descry; to see' (1784 in the Scottish
National Dictionary) which HDAS suggests is synonymous with the
English Romani "dik."

So, the reader comes away with a distinctly wrong impression about
this word when if he had only tried harder he could have definitely
held it up as a strong candidate for a Gaelic-derived word.

There is no bibliography, by the way.

Grant Barrett
Double-Tongued Dictionary
http://www.doubletongued.org/
editor at doubletongued.org

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