"Duchy" vs."dukedom"

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:11 PM -0400 8/24/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Oddly, the first time that I ever came across the word, "dukedom," it
>was in the old R&B song, Duke of Earl. Since that time, I've assumed
>that the word was made up up for the purpose of matching the
>rhythm/rhyme of the song: duke-dom vs. duchy.

Actually, "duchy" would have fit the meter equally well (as opposed
to, say, "bishopric", in the abandoned draft version, "I'm the Bishop
of Pope"), and "dukedom" doesn't rhyme with anything in the song.  I
think it's just more transparent than "duchy".

LH

>Because I've since come
>across the term from time to time in many other environments over the
>years, I've finally been moved to look the word up. I now know that
>the word has been in use since Middle English.
>
>You never know.
>
>-Wilson
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>-Mark Twain
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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