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Re: lexicon

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Friday, May 30, 2003, 2:35
Nik Taylor scripsit:

> > Whatever possessed me to express "reader" and > > "lawmaker" by the same word??? That needs some reconstruction. > > Could be a homophone. Or perhaps some semantic shift. Perhaps the > "lawmaker" term originally meant something like "advisor (to a king)".
Indeed, in Scots law a solicitor is called a "writer", short for "Writer to the King's Signet". This confuses only newbies.
> The advisor's job was to read proposed laws and petitions, and > subsequently give the king his advise. Later political changes caused > these former advisors to become actual lawmakers.
Very plausible! -- What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the John Cowan sound of a [Ww]all that people have stopped jcowan@reutershealth.com banging their head against? --Larry http://www.ccil.org/~cowan