On Monday 01 September 2003 1:13 pm, Geoff Thurman wrote: > Apologies for picking up a dropped thread, particularly when it has > little (read nothing) to do with Debian, but a couple of things have > been gnawing away at my mind. I have snipped from various branches of > the thread: > > On Tuesday 19 August 2003 01:40, Chris Metzler wrote: > > Um. . ."whinging" is perfectly correct, at least according to the > > Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster's 11th Ed. Collegiate, > > etc. It may not be in common use in the U.S., but it's used quite > > commonly in all other English-speaking countries (including, in > > particular, England). > > > > The word "whinge," meaning "to moan fretfully," actually predates > > the word "whine". > > I'm not arguing that this last bit is untrue, I have no authority to > do so; but I find it strange. Whine seems more onomatopoeic to me, > and therefore more natural. And whereas whine is a more > general-purpose word (the wind can be said to do it, and animals, and > nowadays sirens) whinge is surely something that only people do. I > feel that whine *should* have predated whinge. > > On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 11:26:07AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: > > I've only got a small OED here, but: > > > > whinge /windz/ v. & n. colloq. -- v.intr. whine; grumble > > peevishly. > > -- > > > n. a whining complaint; a peevish grumbling. ** whinger n. > > whingingly adv. whingy adj. [OE hwinsian f. Gmc] > > On 2003-08-19 at 11:54 + 2.00 I wrote > > > Concise Oxford Dictionary gives whinge as (dialect or Australian) > > and tracks it back through Old English and Old High German to a > > probable root in the Germanic hwinisojan. > > The same COD tracks whine back through OE whinan to Old Norse hvina. > The words all seem so similar that way back they must have the same > root, surely? At some stage they split, and ever since that split > they have been travelling tangentially
What an idiotic error. For 'tangentially', read 'in parallel'. > down through the languages: > they are still next to each other now, at least in my single-volume > dictionary. The thing is, I can picture somebody long ago being told > they whine like the wind, but not so easily somebody describing the > wind as whinging like a person. It seems to me that the root would be > closer to whine than whinge. > > The other thing troubling me in a vague back-of-the-mind fashion is > this: > > On 2003-08-19 at 11:08, Kevin Mark wrote: > >On Tue, 2003-08-19 at 04:50, Dave Howorth wrote: > >> PS For any yanks who don't know the word, 'poms' is equivalent to > >>'limeys' > > > > Limeys - saliors eat limes to avoid scurvey > > POMS - prisoners of mother england > > equal? > > -K > > I don't recall ever hearing this Prisoners Of Mother England thing > before (although sometimes I don't recall things I was told > yesterday). My understanding was that it also came from the British > habit of carrying fruit on voyages to avoid scurvy, but in this case > the pomegranate rather than the lime. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase > and Fable doesn't even mention this idea, though. It says that the > origin of Pommy or Pommie is uncertain, but that evidence suggests it > came from a mix of 'pomegranate' and 'immigrant', but with the former > referring not to the carrying of the fruit (which, as I say, they > don't even mention) but rather to the ruddy complexions of the > English. The POME theory is described as 'less convincing', although > I must say it has a good ring to it. One can well see the ships' > manifests on the convict voyages describing their cargo in just such > a way. 'Port Out Starboard Home' is considered doubtful too; it's odd > how often books just seem to *spoil* everything these days. > > Geoff -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
