Two Questions for Journalist

[George Thompson]

So, Fred, what were your answers to these questions?  And do you know what
use she has made of your help?

The material recently shared with us about "scallywag" would have been a
splendid answer to question #2.

GAT

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:43 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

> What are examples in recent times of important discoveries about etymology
> or word-origins or phrase-origins or quotation-origins being made "the
> old-fashioned way," i.e., using methods other than searching online
> databases?
>
> Now that "O.K." and arguably "the whole nine yards" have had their
> derivations uncovered, what are the other most significant or most
> interesting words or phrases with mysterious etymologies?
>


GAT

--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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