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At 13:54 5.12.2003, John Cowan wrote:
> But what's the etymology? Unknown, absolutely unknown. As far as anyone can tell, someone pulled it out of his bunghole ca. 1929, and it somehow caught on.
What an appropriate place to get it from! ;)
I'm not that surprised it caught on. It looks
like a GraecoLatinism, i.e. learnëd, i.e.
pretentious, i.e. a word you can use in polite
conversation, which is quite unusual for words of
this meaning.
Swedish has the similarly obscure _gallimattias_.
When I first came across it at age 9 I couldn't
even pronounce it (since I thought the stress was
on the second _a_, when it is really on the second _i_.
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@hidden.email (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__
A h-ammen ledin i phith! \ \
__ ____ ____ _____________ ____ __ __ __ / /
\ \/___ \\__ \ /___ _____/\ \\__ \\ \ \ \\ \ / /
/ / / / / \ / /Melroch\ \_/ // / / // / / /
/ /___/ /_ / /\ \ / /'Aestan ~\_ // /__/ // /__/ /
/_________//_/ \_\/ /Eowine __ / / \___/\_\\___/\_\
Gwaedhvenn Angeliniel\ \______/ /a/ /_h-adar Merthol naun
~~~~~~~~~Kuinondil~~~\________/~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~
|| Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda kuivie aiya! ||
"A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)