[lbo-talk] etymology

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Jul 1 12:44:27 PDT 2005


Carrol Cox wrote:


>I did -- but the OED isn't that useful for full etymologies. It is more
>concerened with the history of the word _in English_. The AHD is better.
>I have misplaced my old copy of Webster's New World, which was good on
>etymologies. Partridge's _Origins_ didn't help in this instance. What
>one needs to satisfy Doug's companions is the IE origin of the words,
>which I found in the AHD's Appendix of IE roots. *tera(dry) for terra,
>*tres (tremble) for terror. But people who are possessed by a folk
>etymology, a conspiracy theory, or a just-so story in biology are always
>hard to convince.

Man, you should see this guy on the subject of The Enlightenment. Kant was a racist and Jefferson was a rapist and a slaveholder, that's all you need to know!

Doug



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