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rebel with a cause Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-07-10 11:34 PM
Original message
This is perhaps off topic but
I just read a definition that I found interesting, not because I didn't know what the word meant but for the history and spelling of it. This word goes through my mind every time I go to certain threads on GD and GDP.

"hare·brained (hâr'brānd')
adj. Foolish; flighty: a harebrained scheme."

"Usage Note: The first use of harebrained dates to 1548. The spelling hairbrained also has a long history, going back to the 1500s when hair was a variant spelling of hare. The hair variant was preserved in Scotland into the 18th century, and as a result it is impossible to tell exactly when people began writing hairbrained in the belief that the word means "having a hair-sized brain" rather than "with no more sense than a hare." While hairbrained continues to be used and confused, it should be avoided in favor of harebrained which has been established as the correct spelling."

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/harebrained
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:13 AM
Response to Original message
1. I haven't see that
word in a long time. And, never really thought about how it was spelled..some of the English language's famous homonyms.
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rebel with a cause Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 11:32 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. My daughter says that I ruined her life with my language.
Edited on Fri Jan-08-10 11:33 AM by rebel with a cause
My parents used language that was from their generation, their parents and grandparents generation when I was growing up. The kids I went to school with always thought it was so colorful when I would come up with terms they had never heard of. Well I continued to use some of those terms and when my daughter went to school times had changed and so had the way kids looked at the world. Unusual words or sayings were no longer looked on as colorful but weird. You had to be hip and cool. (both words of which are now out)

Anyway, these words still live in my head and now that I spend all my days alone they are more prominent. :eyes:
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:34 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. I love words and the more different the better.
And, yes, bring on those different generational idioms.:)

My mom always said "icebox" for the fridge and I still say it sometimes and don't really care when I have to explain it..it brings my mom into the conversation.

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