From: "Roger Mills" <romilly@...>
> >The book is nice, it even shows the probably arabic sources for spanish
> >words. I'm finding it very useful. One of the interesting etymologies for
> >"thistle" (abrojo). The book states that it probably comes from the
phrase
> >"aperi oculos!" (open your eyes!), which the book says was a warning to
> >those reaping and or working in fields covered in thistles.
>
> I'm sure Elsevier only contains the most scrupulous scholarship-- but IMHO
> that etymology seems worthy of St. Isidore of Seville (e.g. vulpes 'fox' <
> vul = vol(a)- 'fly' and pes 'foot', "fleet of foot". Right) ;-)
Well, diccionarios.com also puts "abrojo" from "abre + ojo", but without any
such interesting illustrations as that.
*Muke!