peened

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Dec 17, 2012, at 9:17 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 12:17 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>> "peen"
>
> Does anyone else recall "[ball]pein [hammer]" as the preferred
> spelling of the "Sears 'n' Roebuck" - as we referred to it, down home
> - catalogue? At one time, I considered _peen_ to be a dumbing-down.
> However, I've been neutral on that point for dekkids, now.

the OED lists "pein" as a variant spelling, though "peen" seems to have won the day.

arnold

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