bran(d)-new

[Mark Mandel]

IIRC, there's a pun on that in _The Wizard of Oz_. In the book, the
Wizard grants the Scarecrow's wish by filling his head with bran
instead of straw, thus giving him "bran-new brains".

Mark Mandel


On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 10:51 AM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> My latest Word Routes column is on "brand-new" vs. "bran-new":
>
> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1626/
>
> Beyond the column's discussion of the eggcornic etymythologies
> surrounding "bran-new", antedatings for that spelling may also be of
> interest. OED2 has it from 1714 -- here it is from 50 years earlier:
>
> ---
> Charles Cotton, _Scarronides: or, Virgile travestie A mock-poem. Being
> the first book of Virgils AEneis in English, burlésque_ (1664), p. 80
> A lusty Rascal, such a one
> As one of you (dispraise to none)
> Comes into th' yard, and off o'th' Hedge,
> Where all our Clouts, were hung to Bleach;
> Whips me a bran-new Flaxen-Smock,
> The very best of all my Stock.
> ---
>
> That's from the original edition on EEBO (confirmed by page image).
> Subsequent editions that include burlesques of both Books I and IV of
> the Aeneid change "bran-new" to "brand-new" in this passage:
>
> http://www.archive.org/details/scarronidesorvir00cott
> http://dev.hil.unb.ca/Texts/EPD/UNB/view-works.cgi?c=cottonch.1552&pos=3
>
> However, these later editions include another "bran-new" in a passage
> from the Book IV burlesque:
>
> ---
> At last she sallies from the House,
> As fine and brisk as Body-Louse.
> Shee Hood and Safe-guard had bran new,
> The Lace was Yellow, Cloth was Blew.
> ---
>
> Here's another early EEBO hit for "bran-new":
>
> ---
> Walter Scot, _A true history of the several honourable families of the
> right honourable name of Scot in the shires of Roxburgh and Selkirk,
> and others adjacent_ (1688), p. 26
> Some late start-up bran-new Gentlemen,
> That hardly knows from whence their Fathers came.
> ---
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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