Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1996 14:01:31 +0900

From: Daniel Long dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JOHO.OSAKA-SHOIN.AC.JP

Subject: Re: Beware the flood....



Jesse T Sheidlower wrote:

Let us hope that this will not result in a flood of

people asking about the words that end in -gry or some such.



It's not the thought of a possible flood of irrelevant and uninformed QUESTIONS that frightens

me. It's that we'll have even more uninformed answers than we do now. Just in the past week

or two we have been subjected to contributors informing us about their "theories" of the origin

of "barefoot and pregnant" ("I had in mind, but did not say, that I thought it was southern

Appalachain in origin. It certainly is associated with lower socioeconomic classes."), and of

"corn" ("the word "corn" actually did originate in Iowa. It is derivitive from the Cornpone

Indians who grew field corn and passed it on to the early settlers.")



I wonder if medical research lists are clogged up with people sharing their "theories" about

babies being brought by the stork, and it being possible for women to become pregnant from

drinking after a man, etc.?



Danny Long