prat(t) (but not Siouan)

[ROOD DAVID S]

	Along these lines, my father used to insist that the correct
spelling for the expression "under way", as in "let's get this project
under way", was really "under weigh", as in weighing anchor.  Does anyone
know anything more about that?  I've been laughed at more than once for
perpetuating his idea.

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Koontz John E wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Alan H. Hartley wrote:
> > Bruce Ingham wrote:
> > > Don't forget English skipper.  Presumably Norse from skip
> > OED says Middle Dutch or Middle Low German, Amer. Heritage and Random
> > House say MDu.
>
> I believe a lot of English nautical terminology is of "recent" Dutch
> origin (1500s on?).  This was an area of international borrowing in the
> past.  And a surprising number of obscure idioms and words in English turn
> out to be nautical in origin, e.g., "in the offing" or "aloof."  (I think
> these are both good!)  Alan and I have discussed some of this on the side
> briefly in the past out of mutual interest.  Of course, his knowledge of
> both shipping and etymology in a professional sense is far ahead of mine,
> and he tends to look things up first and speak second, so our exchanges
> tends to consist of eager suggestions by me and patient corrections by
> him.
>