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Re: USAGE: Words for "boredom"

From:Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 19, 2002, 20:47
I looked up "boredom" in the OED and there are no citations before the 19th century.


In a message dated Wed, 19 Jun 2002 3:24:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Nihil Sum
<nihilsum@...> writes:

>All this..... > >Didn't the English word "boredom" itself exist pre-industrially? >Just a thought. > >NS > >>Quoting Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>: >> >> > > Or does Hawai'i not count as a pre-industrial society? >> > >> > Unless the term arose post-colonially, certainly it'd count as >> > pre-industrial. >> >>Okay, so I did a search of the online Perseus dictionary of >>Ancient Greek, and it came up with <alus> for boredom, which >>seems also to have the flavor of "agitation". This should >>be fairly conclusive that you can be preindustrial, and yet >>have a word for "boredom". > >>There is also Swedish _leda_, which shows all signs of being an Old >>Word -- >>being derived by no-longer productive processes. > >>Then of course you have Latin _taedium_. > > >_________________________________________________________________ >MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: >http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx >

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andrew <hobbit@...>