In Reply to: Actually, it's origin is Middle English derived from Germanic and Latin from at least the 15th century. :-) posted by cfb on July 23, 2012 at 08:23:36:
much earlier than the 15C. Yet even Gaelic (all forms incl. Briton) had similar - short & sharp - words for it
Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson - a fun read.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
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Follow Ups
- Nope, probably Saxon/Germanic lots of other European languages - Timbo in Oz 15:12:38 07/23/12 (2)
- Well, there are the following articles on the subject, from Snopes and the Straight dope - cfb 17:04:01 07/23/12 (1)
- As I posted it's a - very - old word. - Timbo in Oz 17:21:11 07/23/12 (0)