Oldest words in English?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not sure how, but Fred needs to get this exchange between Larry and Mark
into the next YBQ.

Gentlemen, my coxcomb is off to you.

JL

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 5:19 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: Oldest words in English?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrote:
>
> > At 3:01 PM -0500 3/1/09, Baker, John wrote:
> > >         AHD suggests that "The origins of the word tin may date to a
> > >time before Europe had been settled by speakers of Indo-European
> > >languages, such as the Germanic and Celtic languages."  This is, of
> > >course, entirely possible.  However, I understood the claim to be
> > >that "tin" is not just of non-Indo-European origin, but actually
> > >older than Proto-Indo-European,...
> >
> > ...and then cleverly borrowed to make the first PIE tin.
> >
>
> ... in your face!
>
> Mark Mandel
>
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