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Take Our Word For It Issue 138
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Melanie Crowley
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Oct 24, 2001 22:55 PDT
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Take Our Word For It Issue 138
http://www.takeourword.com
For Mac users who have trouble with our regular homepage:
http://www.takeourword.com/indexmac.html
**Greetings**
Hi!
**This Week's Issue**
In Spotlight, we look further into wl- words (it may be published a few
minutes after this newsletter is sent)
http://www.takeourword.com/page1.html
In Words to the Wise,we examine the following:
anthrax
http://www.takeourword.com/page2.html#anthrax
afghan
http://www.takeourword.com/page2.html#afghan
coach
http://www.takeourword.com/page2.html#coach
and midnight oil
http://www.takeourword.com/page2.html#midnight oil
In Curmudgeons' Corner a guestmudgeon complains adverbially
http://www.takeourword.com/page3.html
In Sez You... we hear from readers about bonzer's German counterpart; a
proud curmudgeon; re-spelling renege; corrected problems; spell-checker
verse; wl- words; more "doggie dog" errors; and bonzer in Cantonese.
http://www.takeourword.com/page4.htm
In Laughing Stock we ask, "Well, which is it?"
http://www.takeourword.com/page5.html
**Newsletter-Only Etymology (NOE)**
From Maria Sortino:
I am an ESL teacher. I cannot find the origin of "pet peeve". Can you
help?
Certainly. This one is short and sweet. The OED indicates that the
first written occurrence of the phrase is from 1945, but as we have
found, the OED, arbiter of English that it is, still misses the mark now
and again with American words and phrases, so there may be earlier
occurrences of it. Anyhow, it is simply formed from "peeve", a word of
U.S. origin from about 1911 which means "a grumble, a cause of
irritation". "Pet" in this sense is an adjective which is "used to
describe something for which one has a particular fondness". It is used
jocularly in "pet peeve", which means "a special or recurring source of
irritation".
"Peeve", by the way, was back-formed from "peevish".
**Laughing Stock**
We encourage you to send us funny clippings or e-mails that you run
across, because if we use yours in Laughing Stock, you will win a $10
gift certificate to Amazon.com! This week's issue of TOWFI contains a
winning entry in Laughing Stock. Thanks to Traci Marcroft!
**Donations**
We've been remiss in updating our donations page with names of all of
our generous readers, but we have updated it now (after a kind nudge by
one of the donors!). Have a look! If you have donated but your name is
missing, please let us know.
http://www.takeourword.com/help.html
Until next time,
Take Our Word For It!
Melanie and Mike
http://www.takeourword.com
http://www.takeourword.com/indexmac.html
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