[Last Word] Philological Foundlings - Answers - Winter 2007
Spring 2008
| When
it comes to Last Word entries, it’s sometimes more entertaining to look
at the wrong answers than the right ones. This puzzle drew some
doozies. A fair number of puzzlers came up with “skoal” for the first
clue. Nice try. Old Norse it is, sayeth the Oxford English Dictionary,
but skal traces its etymology back to the word “bowl,” not
“be though whole.” Another near miss was “sommelier” instead of
“butler.” Both go back to Old French, but the former takes its root
from sommier, meaning “beast of burden,” not “bottle.” Clue
number 8 elicited a glossary of Jazz Age superlatives: “darb,” “nifty,”
“smooth,” “swinging,” “breezin’” and “groovy.” Our little hint about a
“temperate adjective” helped careful readers narrow the list to “cool.”
For the final clue, one reader offered a delightfully scatological
etymology leading back to the Old Scandinavian for “mistletoe.” Too bad
we can’t print it here. Of the 83 entries received in the Philological
Foundlings contest, 36 were deemed without flaw. Five Borders gift
certificates go out to our randomly selected winners: Thomas S. Bunn
III JD ‘79, Ann Ciochetto, Dolores Greenberg ’67, Louise Sanematsu ’82
and Stephen Slagle ’73 .
Answers ›› 1. wassail 2. posh 3. Tory 4. Uncle Sam 5. Yankee 6. OK 7. copacetic 8. cool 9. butler 10. SOS 11. trash.
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