Friday, January 17

Jim Rome had a funny lampoon of a motorized wheelbarrow that he saw on an ad.

(Incidentally, he kept calling it a wheelbarrel. I wrote him to correct his usage. I wonder if that will be appreciated...)

(Also incidentally, the word barrow is OE for 'to bear'. 'Bier' is a related word. I think this is different from the kind of 'barrow' you might find a barrow-wight in, which appears to come from OE 'beorg/beorh' for 'hill or burial site'.)

('barrow' is also a pig that has been castrated before reaching maturity, from OE 'barow'. So is it somehow related to the word farrow? Nope. That's from OE 'fearh' for pig/little pig [fearh fearh fearh, fearh fearh fearh, let me in...). And there's an agricultural homonym that's unrelated etymologically: 'If a cow has had a calf, but fails in a subsequent year, she is said to be farrow, or to go farrow.' Not to be confused with a heifer.)

Do me a favor: don't tell Jim Rome this is where this thread led me. Don't you think he'd conclude I'm a loser with too much time on my hands? I just got interested...

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