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"Expert opinion"? Oooh, you get extra points for that, Erik! Well, let's start with the Old English form. It was stiweard, formed from stig, a word of unclear meaning, and weard "keeper, ward". This word first turns up in the written record in 1000. It is thought that stig probably meant "house" or "specific part of a house", because we have the word stigwita "house dweller". It is therefore thought to be cognate with sty, and that is where the suggestion that it originally meant pigsty warden arose. That suggestion is incorrect, for sty derives from Old English sti "pen, enclosure", and so by itself has nothing to do with pigs. Your second suggestion, that it can be traced back to "hall guard", is more correct. About 1470 we find spelling closest to that of the surname Stewart, which derives from the same source: stwart is how Scotsman Blind Harry spelled it in his poem "Wallace", about William Wallace (Braveheart). In the 16th century the word's meaning began to change, based on the erroneous belief that it was derived from stede "place" + ward or stow "place" + ward, making a steward "one who stands in the place of another". Ward derives ultimately from the Indo-European root *wer- "to perceive, watch out for", which also gave us words like aware, ward, lord, warden, award, guard, and maybe even panorama. Could the surname Stigwood be related to stiweard or stigwita and, ultimately, to Stewart? |
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From Valerie Segall:
Are you planning to wear one? If so, you would be donning what was originally Native American garb. The word was initially (1878) geestring, and it referred to what amounted to a loincloth held up by a string and worn by certain Indians. Most etymologists think that geestringi was probably originally an Indian word which was adopted in a form that was more familiar to English tongues. The term doesn't appear with reference to showgirl costumes until 1936, but it was likely in use in that sense for some time prior to that date. It was shortened to g-string, possibly by contamination from the notion of stringed instruments like guitars and violins, by 1891, at which time we find this interesting quotation in Harper's Magazine: "Some of the boys wore only 'G-strings' (as, for some reason, the breech-clout is commonly called on the prairie)." This suggests that the word may have been of Sioux or other Plains Indian origin. |
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From Rodney:
We have to be careful about shedding light here in power-shortage-stricken California, but we'll see what we can manage. The word, which can be spelled amuck or amok (the latter being preferred), derives from a Malay word, amoq, defined as "engaging furiously in battle, attacking with desperate resolution, rushing in a state of frenzy to the commission of indiscriminate murder." It was first borrowed by the Portuguese as amuco, and we find it in a Portuguese work of 1516. Its first appearance in the English record is in 1663, when the Portuguese form amouco was used. It was not until 1772, in the writings of the explorer Captain Cook, that we find the English form amock. The amok spelling appeared in 1849. The phrase run amok dates back to 1672, when it was run a mucke in the work of Andrew Marvell. In 1859 Thoreau used it in his Walden Pond: "I might have run 'amok' against society, but I preferred that society should run 'amok' against me. Many early instances of the word amok alone (without run) are used with reference to Malaysia or Malaysian people. |
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Last Updated 08/18/01 07:04 PM