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From: gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: collectible words
Message-ID: <7188@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Apr-85 14:38:40 EST
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.7188
Posted: Tue Apr  9 14:38:40 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Apr-85 03:20:55 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 44

<DDT>
Hello again,
	In my endless search for curious words i stumbled into this
newsgroup a few weeks ago. It seems to me that you guys (neuter
sense!) make up the perfect group of people to ask for word
collections. What i'd like to know is what book(s) exist that
contain the following sets of "collectible words".
	- all words which end in <mumble> (eg. "-nymy" patronymy,
toponymy, eponymy, pseudonymy etc.) and a description of the
etymology of the class of words *as a whole* (i.e. as opposed to
just looking it up in the O.E.D.).
	- all collective nouns (eg. gaggle, herd, swarm, hive, bevy
etc.) and (of course) their etymology.
	- all words for crafts (eg. cobbler, cooper, wainwright etc.)
	- all words which have two exactly opposite meanings (eg.
cleave, fast etc.). (Are there any with *three* mutually
orthogonal meanings? - i'm not even sure what this means!).
	- all words on a particular subject (eg. under "food" we
might find words like fruitarian, commensalism, bulimia etc.)
	- all words which hash together if you only consider their
letters and not the order of the letters, i guess you could call
this a dictionary of anagrams (eg. kiln and link would hash
together).
	- all abbreviations used in literature (don't scream! i mean
things like "i.e." for id est, "q.v." for quo vide, "eg." for <?> etc.).
	- all "false" words, by this i mean all words which were put
into dictionaries in error and then entered the language (the
only such word i know is "ye" which arose because of a misreading
of an anglo-saxon character).
	- all similies and how they entered the languages (eg. why is
someone "as deaf as a post", "as busy as a bee", "as dead as a
doornail", "as drunk as a lord(fish)", "as crazy as a coot" etc.
[ speaking of coot, did the expression "he's a crazy old coot"
devolve from the similie? are there many such derivations?] ).

	Well, i have many more but i think i'll wait for responses to
this list before i post more. Happy hunting!
		greg. (just call me the linguistic magpie)

-- 
Gregory Rawlins CS Dept.,U.Waterloo,Waterloo,Ont.N2L3G1 (519)884-3852
gjerawlins%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet                              CSNET
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