Same thing with Nell ("mine Ell[en]") and Nan ("mine Ann").
Not metanalysis, but the word "goodbye" came from the abbreviation of "God be with you".
I'm having a fun time poking around this site for history of the English language stuff.
Don't I get a cookie?
Spike ,'Never Leave Me'
Natter 42, the Universe, and Everything
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, flaming otters, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Kathy A - Jan 16, 2006 11:50:53 am PST #448 of 10002
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil
Scrappy - Jan 16, 2006 11:52:42 am PST #449 of 10002
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Allyson, I am of the opinion that Roscoe's is the PERFECT celebration dinner.
JZ - Jan 16, 2006 11:56:09 am PST #450 of 10002
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.
Little ita's toddler butt is just so damn cute. 1980 ita is amazing for just how much she is already grown-up ita -- the eyes, the set of the mouth, the knowingness of her gaze: they're all exactly the ita I've seen over and over in grown-up pictures, and met (all too briefly) at the LA F2F. So present, so complete already.
The favorite poems... so good, so gorgeous. My own favorite poem, Google tells me, is nowhere online at all; it's called "Beauty," by Stephen Dobyns. It's long and horribly painful and grotesquely beautiful, and IMO in many ways it's a dark, bitter modern sister to my second favorite poem, and shit, now I'm crying, having read both of them.
And now, Nilly, the end of my second favorite poem will forever after also make me think of you, now that I know the Hebrew word for "orange."
sarameg - Jan 16, 2006 12:05:56 pm PST #451 of 10002
Somebody tell me where the hell they got Sally from Sara. That one never made any sense to me.
Sophia Brooks - Jan 16, 2006 12:12:09 pm PST #452 of 10002
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here
I also wondered where Polly came from Mary (in Louisa May Alcott's The Old-Fashioned Girl they seem to think this is the correct nickname)
Jesse - Jan 16, 2006 12:12:33 pm PST #453 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
L and R are pretty close, pronunciation-wise, no?
Jesse - Jan 16, 2006 12:13:49 pm PST #454 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
I'm pretty sure the real background is that (English-speaking) people used to use very few first names, so you needed lots of nicknames for Mary, Sarah, Ann, Elizabeth, Margaret.
sarameg - Jan 16, 2006 12:24:14 pm PST #455 of 10002
JUST GIVE THEM DIFFERENT NAMES THEN.
I never liked Sally. And the one time someone suggested it, they got the hairy eyeball.
Jessica - Jan 16, 2006 12:27:10 pm PST #456 of 10002
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?
Jack Bauer in a series of Japanese commercials. (Yes, Jack Bauer. Not Kiefer Sutherland.)
Jesse - Jan 16, 2006 12:31:17 pm PST #457 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
JUST GIVE THEM DIFFERENT NAMES THEN.
They didn't have them back then!!!!!!