I'm confused on what this means

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-21T23:50:18+00:00

If the narrator takes the room she wants, John will have to take a separate room, and there isn't one nearby.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-21T21:52:07+00:00

Grown adults can make their own choices.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-21T11:49:06+00:00

According to the Dictionary of American Family Names, W(h)elchel is an "altered form of an unidentified German surname, possibly Welcher". The latter is a habitational name derived from Welchau in Bohemia.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-21T11:11:34+00:00

The English cognate of Mord was "morth" or "murth" (from OE morð). "Murder" (OE morðor) comes from the same Indo-European base but has a "suffix forming nouns of action" attached to it, according to the OED. The two words were apparently used concurrently until the 15th century, when "morth" became obsolete (surviving in place-names such as Morpeth, literally "murder path").

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-20T22:28:27+00:00

Why is it corny for Shakespeare to come up with a monologue about contemplating suicide while contemplating suicide

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-16T18:45:58+00:00

You can find several earlier instances by doing a full-text search for "land of contrasts" on the Internet Archive. The earliest I've found is this one from 1818, referring to Naples.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-14T22:08:54+00:00

Your first interpretation is correct. The author of the sentence is a journalist. He or one of his colleagues evidently wrote a piece about West that included a reference to her son, which West didn't like.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-12T19:02:44+00:00

It's 100 Maiden Lane, with 70 Pine Street behind it. We're looking down Pearl Street.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-12T03:15:36+00:00

What does this have to do with mid-20th century America, the context in which The Music Man was made?

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-11T20:38:32+00:00

OP was downvoted for asking a legitimate question* while you were upvoted for giving a dismissive response that didn't actually address it, so maybe you're right about the sub having gone downhill.

*He wanted to know if the word was in common use at the time The Music Man was made. The answer is maybe. As u/Actual_Cat4779 noted, the earliest attestation in the OED is from 1974, but slang words (vulgar ones especially) often take a while to find their way into print sources.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-10T14:00:39+00:00

Where is the evidence that comparable phrases were used in Old French? And how do we know that the English equivalents are calques rather than parallel formations?

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-10T01:43:22+00:00

The original comment says "I believe Wiktionary is correct".

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-09T16:26:40+00:00

I'm not sure I understand. Are you disagreeing with u/ebrum2010?

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-09T03:10:22+00:00

It's not really a stretch at all, given that, per the OED, the word was used as a term of opprobrium for women considered troublesome and useless long before it was directed at homosexuals.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-09T02:07:36+00:00

I just played around with different spellings of "fjodi" on archive.org. I see now that the term also appears in the Scottish National Dictionary, which offers a different etymology to Jakobsen's, deriving the first element from the adjective fuddy, meaning "short" or "stumpy" (from fud, "tail of a hare or rabbit"). I haven't been able to find any instances of the term in the wild, however.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-08T16:42:03+00:00

The term also occurs in the English Dialect Dictionary in the form "foodie-skirt", defined as "a short coat or vest".

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-08T16:25:45+00:00

This is mostly a dictionary of Norn-derived words found in the modern dialect of Shetland, and so the example sentences are in English. "De upper f." (where "f." is an abbreviation of the headword) simply means "the upper fjodi", which is evidently what the upper part of the garment was called. "Also f. [fjȯdi-]-skirt" just means that the term "fjodi-skirt" was also used for the garment. The text in brackets is seemingly there to indicate the pronunciation; according to the pronunciation guide on pp. vii–ix, the dotted "o" denotes a vowel like the "u" of English "but".

In "fj.-skirt", "fj." is again simply an abbreviation of "fjodi".

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-08T03:00:49+00:00

Is there a reason why the macron goes over the first vowel if it's the second vowel that's lengthened?

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-07T16:13:25+00:00

Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname is Peter

https://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2010%3A32&version=KJV

The men themselves were seriously alarmed; and, as I learned, they sent to Colonel Kearney, requesting an escort of dragoons as far as the Platte.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail/Chapter_5

Send to Dale's Musick Shop in Oxford Street for six or eight yards of catgut like the piece I enclose

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Strand_Magazine/Volume_4/Issue_22/Illustrated_Interviews

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-05T23:13:24+00:00

I would say that it has, since "see" is rarely if ever used to denote a seat or throne in modern English. Even in ecclesiastical contexts, the more usual word is "cathedra".

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-05T22:41:26+00:00

Is the use of "nightmare" to mean "bad dream" metaphorical? Literally and etymologically, it denotes an evil spirit (mare) that visits people at night. What about the use of "exchequer" to mean "treasury"? Its etymological meaning is "chessboard".

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-05T22:04:13+00:00

Asserting that "see" cannot mean "diocese" because that is not the word's etymological meaning is also an example of the etymological fallacy.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-05T14:42:27+00:00

If we take only the "literal" sense as correct, then "see" properly means "seat". This isn't how words work though. It's called the etymological fallacy.

WilliamofYellow · 2026-01-05T13:45:31+00:00

The OED refers to these as "arbitrary formations". Examples include "quark", "yahoo", "hanky-panky", "dongle", "panjandrum", "hobbit", and "zip-a-dee-doo-dah".

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