akilter

[Marc Velasco]

no mention of _off kilter_ ?

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: akilter
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >                  Similarly with these a- adjectives, the
> > meaning ends up approximating 'a bit off', whether by reinforcing the
> > base ("akimbo", "awry", etc.) or reversing it ("akilter").  The fact
> > that "kilter" is so rare itself doesn't hurt.
>
> What's the base of "akimbo"? OED etym:
>
> [Deriv. unknown. Prof. Skeat (Append.) gives a suggestion of
> Magnussen, comparing the earliest known forms with Icel. keng-boginn,
> -it, 'crooked' (Vigfusson), lit. 'bent staple-wise, or in a horse-shoe
> curve'; other suggestions are a cambok in the manner of a crooked
> stick (ME. cambok, med.L. cambuca [long u], see CAMMOCK); a cam bow in
> a crooked bow. None of these satisfies all conditions.
>  The difficulty as to a-cambok, a cam bow, is that no forms of the
> word show cam-, from which the earliest are the most remote. The Icel.
> keng-boginn comes nearer the form, but there is no evidence that it
> had the special sense of a-kimbo, and none that the latter ever had
> the general sense of 'crooked.' It also postulates an early Eng.
> series of forms like *keng-bown or *keng-bowed, *keng-bow, *akengbow,
> quite unknown and unaccounted for.]
>
> --
> Mark Mandel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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