Text 5342, 48 rader
Skriven 2006-07-30 18:05:00 av Robert E Starr JR (5839.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Babylon 5: Lost t Tal
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* * * This message was from Joseph DeMartino to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
         * * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *         
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Amy Guskin wrote:

> Nicole, do you have any idea from when the garment-industry usage dates?

That garment industry thing sounds like a bit of folk etymology to me,
a kind of linguistic reverse-engineering where someone tries to figure
out how an unfamiliar word migh have arisen.  Once these bogus stories
end up in print they take on a life of their own and get circulated as
fact by perfectly innocent people.

It is the process that gives us such nonsense as "Posh" having
originally meant "Port Outbound, Starboard Home", "Tip" coming from "to
Insure prompt service". (Unless you were being paid a cash benefit if
the service were slow, the word would have be "tep" even if this nutty
tale were true, since the correct word in this context would be
"ensure")  Probably the widely know of these is "For Unlawful Carnal
Knowledge" or "Fornication Under the King", neither of which gave us
any well-known words.  (And one of which doesn't even make much. <g>)
The notion that the word "Picnic" has some dreadful racist origin is a
similar folktale having no basis in fact.

Nothing I've found in a brief search of "nit-picker" has turned up any
reference to the garment industry story.  (In any event, such
imperfections on woven or knit garments have always been referred to as
"pills", perhaps a corruption of "pulls", by every seamstress,
rag-trade worker and theatrical costumer I've ever known.  The word was
even used on the packaging of a litte plastic-blade "shaver" that
someone once gave me for removing the things from fabrics, so I doubt
it was purely a New York usage.)

I dropped a line to Evan Morris ("The Word Detective") whose column may
be carried in your local paper.  (If it isn't, and you are a lover of
words, you should write the editor of your paper to ask for it, and
help support his website by subscribing to his e-mail newsletter.
http://www.word-detective.com/ )

Regards, 

Joe
             
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