Re: Weekly Vocab 6: to know

I've not access to the OED, but Random House and American Herirtage
dictionaries show:
_toad_ <- (ME) _tode_ <- (OE) _tade_/_taddig_
_toadstool_ <- (ME) _tode_ + _stool_

Perhaps this is a a case of lingustic convergance? A dark double entendre?

The ones which I grew up calling "toadstools" were fly agaric - Amanita
muscaria - hallucinogenically poisonous.
Some toads exude hallucinogenic poisons from latertal glands.


>Is that really so?  Then the (isolated) word 'toad' (that kind of frog
>to be imprecise) must be the same root, or at least is very likely to
>be when you compare the Dutch word 'padde(n?)stoel', which is also a
>word for 'mushroom', since 'pad' is a toad and 'stoel' is a chair (so
>almost a 'stool').  *Very* strange.
>
>(My mother once said that she knew the German word 'Krötenstuhl' for
>(some?) mushrooms, which is also a 'toad chair'.  I did not know that
>word, though.)
>
>Well, why should a 'toad' be connected to death?  Is that really so?
>Any sources for this?
>
>**Henrik
>
>PS: Another question: does Lojban have a word for 'mould'/'mildew'
>(those two words seem to have other meanings each; I mean the thing
>populating food when you look away for a long enough time)?  That's
>also fungus, isn't it...?
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