[Ads-l] "long drink of water" redux

[Amy West]

On 12/5/25 00:00, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date:    Thu, 4 Dec 2025 11:29:00 -0500
> From:    Ben Zimmer<bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: "long drink of water" redux
>
> I see Joseph Wright's_English Dialect Dictionary_ (1898) has a similar
> entry for "drink" defined as "a lanky, overgrown person" (Scottish), with
> the same 1887 cite as SND.
>
> https://archive.org/details/cu31924088038397/page/n188/mode/1up
> https://books.google.com/books?id=ga0yAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA175
>
> Wright also gives this etymology:
>
> [Norw. dial._dreng_, a young lad, a man just grown up (Aasen); ON.
> _drengr_, a young unmarried man; cp. Norw. dial._drengkall_, an unmarried
> man.]
>
> I have no idea if that's the actual origin (OED doesn't weigh in), but it
> suggests "(long/tall) drink of water" emerged folk-etymologically based on
> the resemblance of_dreng(r)_ to _drink_.
>
> --bgz

Oh, I'd be very excited if there were a connection between ON-Icel. 
/drengr/ and this modern Scots use of /drink/, but I'm highly doubtful: 
there's a good 600 years at least needing to be bridged between the two. 
I think this giant of philology/medieval studies/historical linguistics 
might have been misled. (But I would be very happy to be corrected.)

---Amy West

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