ety. of "shanty"
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 29 12:00:58 UTC 2011
In the sense of a wooden hut or the like.
OED and most everybody else sugg. syn. Fr. "chantier." Sure, why not? Lots
of Fr. Canadian lumberjacks lived in shanties.
Somebody at another forum sugg. Irish/Gaelic "seann taigh/ sean tigh"
literally "old house."
The Irish, of course, are stereotypically associated with shanties - though
only in America, I think. Anyway, my BS Detector warns me that the grammar
of "seann taigh" may be impossible.
Definitive judgment, please.
JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list