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Subject:Fwd: The origin of Dirty From:Gwen Gall <ggall -at- CA -dot- ORACLE -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 28 Jul 1994 14:33:06 EDT
---- Included Message ----
Received: 07-28-94 09:49 Sent: 07-28-94 09:42
From: ggall.CA
To: cnseq1:TECHWR-L -at- VM1 -dot- ucc -dot- okstate -dot- edu
Subject: The origin of Dirty
Steve Fouts says:
My Big Honkin' (tm) dictionary lists ``dirt'' as ``often attributed to
an alteration of Middle English drit, from Old Norse for excrement,'' akin
to OE dritan and ON drita, both meaning to defecate (both use the long I
sound). It then goes on to examine similarities between this word and
Serbian and Lithuanian words that still mean ``to defecate.''
***********************
<sigh with eyes held humbly down>
Yes, it's true. I was wrong. I don't have an etymological dictionary here,
and used my Concise Oxford. Unfortunately, I took the brief attribution for
"dis-" as part of the entry for "dirty" which preceded it (I was in a hurry
and it was nearing the end of my lunch break), which stated that it is
(sometimes) from OF.
How embarrassing for an ex-reference librarian. Can't even use her tools
properly.
