More Word Geeking

[gnomi]

Things I've learned tonight (with obscenities):

-- "Broke" to mean "out of money" dates from the late 1600s

-- "Gotten" was in use in British English as late as the 1890s

-- "Bugger" dates to the 1790s as a "coarse slang" interjection.


I loves me the OED. :-)

Comments

[tiptoe39.livejournal.com]

the oed rocks.

[eal.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Every time I have a librarian showing off sources to students -- I insist on the OED. Once the presentation is over, I say that right there is the only dictionary that should EVER be quoted in a college level paper. :)

M

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Gotten in the sense of "I have gotten what I wanted" or gotten in the sense of "gotten with child"?

And I assume "broke" comes from the same basic thought-root as "bankrupt"?