PDA

View Full Version : Lexicological Astonishment


Brown Study
06-16-2008, 07:57 AM
Odds bodkins! Whoda thunketh that the word email (http://www.macworld.com/article/133956/2008/06/hate_leopard.html) (scrolleth thou down at link) doth trace its ancestry to Anno Domini 1480!

email

/ee'mayl/ (also written `e-mail' and `E-mail') 1. n. Electronic mail automatically passed through computer networks and/or via modems over common-carrier lines. Contrast snail-mail, paper-net, voice-net. See network address. 2. vt. To send electronic mail.

Oddly enough, the word `emailed' is actually listed in the OED; it means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or perh. arranged in a net or open work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is probably derived from French `e'maille'' (enameled) and related to Old French `emmailleu"re' (network). A French correspondent tells us that in modern French, `email' is a hard enamel obtained by heating special paints in a furnace; an `emailleur' (no final e) is a craftsman who makes email (he generally paints some objects (like, say, jewelry) and cooks them in a furnace).

There are numerous spelling variants of this word. In Internet traffic up to 1995, `email' predominates, `e-mail' runs a not-too-distant second, and `E-mail' and `Email' are a distant third and fourth.

source: dictionary.reference.com of course :).
Mayhap more surprises awaiteth in yon wings. Spam's history, methinks, coulds't be worth seeking out . Dids't Hormel, in truth, invent it? For, marry! 'Tis true, after all, that justified type be centuries old.

iKitten
06-16-2008, 10:01 AM
The article thou linkest maketh me grateful for mine hesitance to transition to the honorable Leopard.

Sherman Homan
06-16-2008, 10:41 AM
Hear ye! I am old enough to remember the original use of the word email!
Many such emails led to searches of vast fortunes and wonderous tales in the far off African land of Nigeria, none returned...

Brown Study
06-16-2008, 11:25 AM
. . . none returned...Arrrrrr. That be true. Barkeep! Another noggin an' I'll tell ye a tale of gold by the bar'l in Afrikay and all the gems of mystrious Cathay just a-lyin' at your feet.

Haw harrrrr.