Re: CHAT: RPGs (was Re: Wargs)

Sally Caves wrote:
> for how can I also say hermaphrodite in Teonaht?  man woman-like?  That
> just doesn't cut it, does it?
"One Who Is Both Man And Woman" perhaps?  Probably wouldn't be a single
word, but a phrase.  Of course, in langs with gender, that's another
issue.

> Wergild did not mean "man money," as it is popularly conceived.  Wer(e)
> was "pledge," with a long e.  I have no proof of what the were in
> werewolf
> is, but I suspect it was a distorted form of OE wearg, werig, or WARG,
> bringing it in tradition with the Scandinavian forms.
Interesting.  Why "pledgemoney"?

As for werewolf, could it have been an anglicization of the var- in
vargulfr?

> Why our modern spelling with were?
'Cause it *were* a wolf that became a man?  ;-)

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