Re: CHAT: various infotaining natlang tidbits

Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

> I thought you meant that pidgin was the Portuguese word for small.
ROTFLMAO!  But it's all happened before.  Samuel Johnson, in his Dictionary,
derived the word "curmudgeon" from French "coeur mechant" (wicked heart),
attributing this (improbable) etymology to an "unknown correspondent".

A later dictionary gravely informed the world that the etymology of
"curmudgeon" was from "coeur" = "unknown" and "mechant" = "correspondent"!

("Pidgin", BTW, is Chinese Pidgin English for "business".)

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