"troll" and other words with two mommies?

[W Brewer]

GN: <<So to ask whether it's derived from A or B is to misunderstand the
phenomenon. >>
WB:  Whitman's article looks like good old fashioned philology to me. The
basic problem, then, is the nature of the lexicographic beast, operating
within cladistic constraints. All language change is the result of analogy
in great part, if not in toto. Down with Chomskyism! (Jist cain't controll
myself.)

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