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March 26

Looking for a word

Lately I watch a lot of sitcoms/comedy series. As a german, there is one word I hear repeatetly, it sounds like: groace/grosse ... in the context of "sick/nasty/abnormal". I tried so many different spelling attempts, but can't find the exact word on google or dict.leo. Does someone have any idea which word I mean? Thanks! --134.3.11.14 (talk) 11:35, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Gross. - Lindert (talk) 11:40, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks man. I guess I haven't found it, because gross/groß is also german for "big/tall"! --134.3.11.14 (talk) 11:44, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you have. In English (originally American English but it's spread to British English) "gross" is used as a slang term meaning something like, "disgusting". Of course, it has other older meanings, including "excessive" and "144".{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 15:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

OP means s/he hadn't found it before the answer above, but now has. -- Elphion (talk) 15:39, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The thing is that "gross" comes from two different sources, hundreds of years ago. One meant "large", the other meant "coarse". Similarly used and unrelated is "grody" or "groty", from "grotesque". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Well it was just one source for the adjective (Old French gros, grosse, meaning big, thick, coarse) but the word developed different shades of meaning in English, with the recent sense of "disgusting" being only a slight modification of the usage by Milton, Dryden & Burke to mean "brutally lacking in refinement or decency" (OED). Dbfirs 22:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

me or I

Which is correct: me and Mary were returning from... or I and Mary were returning from...? Thanks--93.174.25.12 (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The correct form is "Mary and I were returning". The first person pronoun should come last according to prescriptive rules. If you are asking which form do speakers actually use (descriptive rules), then "Me and Mary were returning" is in widespread use, but it is a bit of a marker for a less educated speaker. "Mary and I were returning" is probably used at least as often as "Me and Mary..." in the United States, and almost exclusively among high-status speakers. Marco polo (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Professor Joseph Emonds showed in 1986 that, although the rule Marco Polo refers to has been taught for generations, it is not, and cannot be, part of any naturally-learned English. This is one of the reasons for the prevalence of hypercorrection, cases where the rule requires "Mary and me" but people "say Mary and I". --ColinFine (talk) 15:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I never claimed that "Mary and I" was naturally-learned English. I was just answering the question about which form is "correct". An overwhelming majority of English speakers with a university education consider "Mary and I" correct and the alternative constructions incorrect. I don't doubt that "Mary and me" or "Me and Mary" are more "natural", but if the questioner wants to be perceived as "correct" by people with a university education, then he or she has to use "Mary and I". Marco polo (talk) 17:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but only when used as the subject. Colin's point, I think, is that there are times when it appears as the object, where it has to be "Mary and me", prescriptively (These rules apply equally to Mary and me). It's weird that people will say "Me and him done it" but in the next breath say "Between you and I, it's not worth what they're charging". It's either utter disregard for the rules, or trying too hard to follow them - where's the happy medium? -- Jack of Oz 17:29, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but in the questioner's case, the pronoun is clearly the subject of the phrase. I don't see why we need to confuse the questioner by answering questions that he or she did not ask. Does anyone want to dispute that "Mary and I were returning" is the form that educated speakers would consider correct? Marco polo (talk) 00:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but that's the whole point. Kids get "Mary and I" drummed into them so successfully, that they think it's wrong to ever say "Mary and me" in any circumstances whatsoever, and so they hypercorrect. It's good to know that, while "Mary and I" is indeed the answer to the OP's question, there are cases where that would be dead wrong. There's always value in taking a bigger picture approach to these things, as long as one doesn't lose sight of the details, and I don't think we got anywhere near that point here today. -- Jack of Oz 06:39, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

... and that hypercorrection has become so common that it is heard from educated speakers of a variety of ages, even on the BBC. It must have a claim as one of the most common grammatical errors in spoken English (replacing the earlier "me and Mary" at the start of a sentence which was very common here in the 1950s). Dbfirs 07:23, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Personally I don't have a problem with people using "Mary and me" as a subject, it is very common in the UK. However the hyper-correction ("Mary and I" as an object) really grates - it makes me think that the speaker is trying to be posh. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:32, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Funny, but I'm the opposite. I mean, I don't think either is correct, but "Mary and me" as a subject sounds more substandard to me than "Mary and I" as an object. 86.179.6.219 (talk) 18:30, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

They're both wretched. "They gave Mary and I the award" or "They gave I the award." No. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:47, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't like it, but "between you and I" seems to be gaining ground, as a result of proscriptions against "Me and Mary" as a verb subject (some people apparently just decide to use "I" in all conjoined phrases). AnonMoos (talk) 22:50, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

The simple rule, which we were taught, is for that example, take the "Mary and" or "and Mary" out of the sentence and see how it sounds. You wouldn't use "me" as the subject unless you're Tonto or Tarzan or some such. And using "I" as the object sounds effected, like a joke, as Q Chris notes above. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

93.174..., if you are trying to learn what is considered "correct" English, I apologize for the confusing discussion above. What people are trying to say is that the widely accepted "correct" form for your statement is "Mary and I were returning", since I is part of the subject of the sentence and I, not me, is a subject (nominative) pronoun. Even though that is considered by most educated people to be the "correct" form, you will find many (mostly less educated) native speakers of English using "me and Mary" or "Mary and me" in the subject of the sentence. However, if you wanted to refer to Mary and yourself as an object in a sentence, the correct form would be "Mary and me". For example, "The girl returned home with Mary and me". Some of the people commenting are regretting that because of the rule that "Mary and I" is the correct subject form, even some educated speakers incorrectly will say *"The girl returned home with Mary and I". You want to make sure that you use the correct form depending on whether the pronoun is part of the subject or an object in the sentence. Marco polo (talk) 13:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I would also clarify that there is a small minority of educated English speakers, mostly linguists, who do not think that "unnatural" rules of correctness should be imposed on a language, and some of these people have commented above. However, this is a very small minority, and if you want to appear to be correct when communicating with English speakers who are not linguists, you should ignore the linguists. Marco polo (talk) 13:36, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

And to make myself completely clear, I side with linguists who think that, in an ideal world, there should be no unnatural rules imposed on a language. However, we don't live in an ideal world, and we do English-language learners a disservice when we confuse them about the applicability of those unnatural rules, since breaking those rules can have real consequences, such as hurting a person's employment prospects. Marco polo (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

March 27

Cyrillic letter?

Is the letter in place of "N" in "UKRAINE" in the following image supposed to be En (Cyrillic)?

http://sportanalytic.com/uploads/images/default/antiniva.jpg

86.179.6.219 (talk) 20:05, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

It seems half-way between Cyrillic Н and Cyrillic И, which is weird since the rest of the word uses Latin script. Cyrillic Н would make the most sense if they were going to interpose a Cyrillic letter in a Latin word, but it seems to be malformed. -- Jack of Oz 20:56, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

This just reflects the old-fashioned sloped ens--although someone obviously thinks it still needs to be backwards. You will see old Cyrillic ens made with sloping or descending crossbars, as is shown in our article Early Cyrillic alphabet or even better in this image http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/d/dd/Vater_unser_altkirchenslawisch.jpg from the German article. μηδείς (talk) 21:23, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

It seems unlikely to me that there would be any (unintentional) errors in the typography, given that this is the official Ukrainian vest, which presumably must have been approved by some Ukrainian authority. When I first saw it I wondered if it was a visual joke, tinkering with the word "UKRAINE" to give it a bogus "Cyrillic" feel, in a kind of comic-book style. However, I'm not sure that such a style would be very appropriate in this situation. 86.179.6.219 (talk) 21:50, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it's stylised, since it accurately reflects no actual letter in any alphabet. I agree it's hard to credit that the Ukrainian authorities would have reversed the direction of the oblique stroke simply to inject a faux-Cyrillic feel. On reflection, I think they've used a version of the early Cyrillic И, as per the 10th letter in this table. But that's equally odd, since it’s a vowel (I) and what's needed here is a consonant (N). -- Jack of Oz 23:36, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it's just a stylized Latin N designed to look more like a large lowercase n. Angr (talk) 00:06, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I suspect it's a typically linguistically ignorant graphic designer who thinks (like Jack said a stylised) backwards letter "looks Russian". But I did want to point out that the "H"-like en of Slavic is a modern development, not the original. μηδείς (talk) 01:10, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

But wouldn't the Ukrainian team have used home-grown people (who by definition know the Cyrillic alphabet) for all their costumes and so on? Or, if anything was outsourced - and even if it wasn't - wouldn't the final products have been subject to rigorous scrutiny before being approved for use? That it seems to have been specially designed this way suggests it was intentional and not just some slip up that nobody noticed until it was too late. The question is, what were they trying to communicate with this design? -- Jack of Oz 03:06, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

To me it just looked like a "capitalised" small (latin) N - it is not unheard of for logo designers to deliberately incorporate one letter in a different case to the rest of the logo. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I saw рєасн brand vodka on the shelf a few weeks back. Took me half a minute to realize it wasn't "reasn" brand. Doubt the graphic designer was Russian, or cared. μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

We have an article (about everything); Faux Cyrillic. Alansplodge (talk) 09:36, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

March 28

Legal Latin term

There is a term in legal Latin, meaning (approximately) "Offences to the gods will be dealt with by the gods", which was used recently (well, at some point in the 20th century) to clarify the status of blasphemous libel as an offence against the State, rather than against God. It's not in Legal Latin or Blasphemy law in the United Kingdom. Does anyone know what it is? Tevildo (talk) 00:22, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

According to http://www.ferriolus.info, Emperor Tiberius said "Deorum injuriae diis curae" ("The gods take care of injuries to the gods").

—Wavelength (talk) 00:46, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

That's it, thanks. And the case was Bowman v Secular Society AC 406, per Lord Sumner, if anyone's interested. Tevildo (talk) 00:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

2. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree, great! μηδείς (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I am this and am that

Is there a certain stylistic point in "I am a and am ? I have on occasion seen this kind of use of "am" by seemingly native English speakers. The lack of a second "I" is understandable, but why is the second "am" there? How is the clause different from "I am A and also B"? --Pxos (talk) 00:55, 28 March 2013 (UTC) Add: In writing that is, of course. --Pxos (talk) 01:00, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Just another example of the poor state of education these days is my guess. Either that or an oblique reference to Eminem or M&Ms. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:35, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Your implication is that there is something wrong with the sentence. What? --ColinFine (talk) 13:39, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that sort of ellipsis and simply an option one faces that may make more or less sense stylistically or for clarity in various contexts. You give me the full page of text before and after that statement and I can give a more definitive and well argued reason than "it depends". μηδείς (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with μηδείς that the context matters, but would add that I would be most likely to use this construction (to avoid unnecessary repetition) where the two subjacts are not grammatically congruent such as your two noun phrases, or are congruent but are very contrasting. Examples:

I am a sportsman and I am a dog owner - correct but clumsy;

I am a sportsman and am a dog owner - a little odd but not wrong;

I am a sportsman and a dog owner - more elegant;

I am a sportsman and am reading theology at Oxford - normal in my idiolect .

I am a sportsman and reading theology . . . - would seem wrong to most BrE speakers.

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 14:27, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

"I am a sportsman and reading theology" sounds wrong because it's a violation of the rules of Parallelism (grammar). Nyttend (talk) 15:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Zeugma? "She left in a huff and a bathchair" --TammyMoet (talk) 18:50, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The construction just grates on my ears, but now that you mention it, I agree there are certain situations where it would be necessary. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Coniuncturalist

What's a coniuncturalist? It appears in our Edward Ochab article (added here), which describes him as being a "Political coniuncturalist with a Stalinist past". It's not in the OED, and a Google search for <coniuncturalist -ochab> returns exactly one result, so I'm guessing that it's some sort of misspelling; "conventionalist" would make sense by the context, but the arrangement of letters on my keyboard means that I can't imagine someone accidentally typing "coniuncturalist" while meaning "conventionalist". Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Should start by assuming i=j. "Conjuncturalist" does get some definite Google hits (though not too many)... AnonMoos (talk) 02:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

As in Conjuncture (international relations). ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:04, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Spelling changed and link added. Thanks; I figured that it couldn't be a single-letter typo, since Google didn't give me a "Did you mean...?" message. Nyttend (talk) 02:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

This is an obvious calque from the Polish koniunkturalista, which Słownik języka polskiego PWN defines as "a person who is guided by their self-interest in their life". In the article, I think it would be best to replace the word with "opportunist", unless someone suggests better words to express the same meaning in English. — Kpalion 12:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Münchener or Münchner?

I am drinking Keisari Münchener beer right now, and the name caught my attention. Having actually visited Munich, I am fairly sure Munich natives spell it Münchner without the "e" in between. Am I correct? Or can it be spelled both ways? JIP | Talk 19:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Münchner is more common, but Münchener is correct as well. Angr (talk) 19:17, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

For a concrete example, the band is Münchener Freiheit, the U-Bahn station is Münchner Freiheit. Tevildo (talk) 19:54, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

March 29

Out of print books

The website MovieHunter.tv accesses rare, out of print or presumed-lost VHS and DVDs for customers. Is there a similar site for books? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theskinnytypist (talk • contribs) 04:16, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Note: added a header This google search has several good leads. --Jayron32 04:22, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Abebooks is very comprehensive. --Viennese Waltz 08:33, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I mostly use BookFinder, which aggregates search results from many other sites (including Abebooks). Deor (talk) 12:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Deor, good to know. — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:42, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Soledad Pastorutti

I'm a bit confused about the last line of Soledad Pastorutti's entry - Mariage's fruit with Jeremias Audoglio . I think it's referring to the fact that she and her husband had a daughter, but in English it doesn't mean anything. I don't want to correct it as I don't know what the original intent/meaning was, so it wouldn't be fair. http://en.wikipedia.org/Soledad_Pastorutti 86.184.89.208 (talk) 23:23, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you're right. According to the scantily referenced article in the Spanish Misplaced Pages, Pastorutti is married to Jeremias Audoglio and has two daughters, Antonia and Regina (the latter was just born last month).--Cam (talk) 02:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

It's obviously a bad machine translation from the Spanish. μηδείς (talk) 02:07, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the wording. We still need sources, though. StuRat (talk) 14:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

March 30

doubt

what is the meaning of "i sware on my throat"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.242.175.225 (talk) 05:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

If you would deign to tell us where you saw that, you might actually get an intelligent answer. Looie496 (talk) 05:58, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

What Louie means is: Would you please tell us where you heard that? We would love to help you, but we need more information. -- Jack of Oz 06:58, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

No matches found for any spelling of swear. Common expressions are "swear on oath", "swear on life", and "swear on a stack of bibles". I suppose one can swear on anything, but, as others have pointed out above, the context is important to shades of meaning. Dbfirs 08:04, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

It means (for example):

Did you kill the lamb? No I didn't! I swear on my throat! So if you are guilty... I shall take your throat and feed it to the lambs!

You could swear on your life, or your pig's, or your lamb's... You could swear on anything. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 10:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like it means "I swear on my life". That is, "If I'm proven wrong, you can kill me". StuRat (talk) 14:06, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

As in the old kids' saying, "Cross my heart and hope to die" if not telling the truth. And the line from The Godfather, "I swear, on the lives of my grandchildren..." ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

And by the way, "sware" is an archaic spelling of "swear". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:13, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Right, because assuming the OP is a time traveler and not merely a poor typist is the correct interpretation of the situation. --Jayron32 15:36, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the most likely scenario is that the OP has encountered this phrase, spelled the way he wrote it, in his reading and doesn't understand it, perhaps precisely because he doesn't know that sware is an archaic past tense of swear. Angr (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Er, no. 'Sware' is an archaic form of 'swore', eg Psalms 95:11: "Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest." Your reference clearly shows that. And what Jayron said. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Oops, you're right, it's past tense. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:36, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

March 31

Name of Japanese house style

What is the name for the style of Japanese houses where the walls are made of paper and the doors are sliding panels? What it the best Anglisized rendering of that name?

SteveBaker (talk) 02:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

It is 和室, washitsu, literally "Japanese-style room". The paper walls are called shoji, or in English, er, paper walls. 72.128.82.131 (talk) 04:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Not exactly. 和室 refers to a single room (or multiple rooms) set up in Japanese style within a house or apartment, and not to the whole house (which would include the exterior walls, roof, garden, etc.). There may be a generic architectural term (as opposed to the many specific terms for specific styles within that genre) for the traditional Japanese style of housing, and I would settle for 和式の家 ('washiki no ie' - 'Japanese-style house'), but in older Japan, I am pretty sure it just would have been called 'house' by most people, as there would not have been a distinction. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

The thread at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110425182611AAJOtLP may also be of interest. 86.160.217.209 (talk) 11:47, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

πολύκερων

I looked for the causes of the word πολύκερων and found it's sg.m.acc (persus) . does is? Why in wikidictory it's wrote as gen? . And if it's not acc what is the verb\ptcp needs gen? thank you.--82.81.24.161 (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

It is accusative singular (either masculine or feminine). It's not in Wiktionary at all; the word you linked to is ἔρως, which is a different word with a different declension. Angr (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

sorry but it's shouldnt look like ἔρως? cause they both has gen ωτος:

πολύ-κερως, ωτος, ὁ, ἡ,

ἔρως , ωτος, ὁ,

or i wrong? like which word it's should look like? --82.81.24.161 (talk) 19:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

It is the same as ἔρως. ἔρων also occurs for acc. sg. of ἔρως, along with ἔρωτα. Alternative forms. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:09, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

List of uncommon words?

I am looking for uncommon words to use in my (fiction) writing. Words like dilapidated, aestival, mabsoot, etc. Is there a website or a page on Misplaced Pages with a list of them? --24.145.65.56 (talk) 19:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

There's a few words here. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think delapidated dilapidated is that uncommon. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Unless you're looking for really obscure words, Thesaurus.com will help you to find alternatives. For less mainstream words, try Luciferous Logolepsy "Dragging obscure words into the light of day". Alansplodge (talk) 20:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the Logolepsy site, it is great. And SMUconlaw, "dilapidated" is the proper spelling of the word. --24.145.65.56 (talk) 21:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoops. I knew that. — SMUconlaw (talk) 21:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you please form a longer sentence consisting of uncommon words? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 22:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Now go check a vocabulary-builder out of the library. μηδείς (talk) 22:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

"An entablature of salamanders performed a myoclonic can-can". (Alan Moore, 1981-ish). Tevildo (talk) 00:02, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Check out Edelweiss. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

My all-time favourite book for uncommon words is "Mrs Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words". It's full of gems such as:

• perissotomist: a knife-happy surgeon
• redargution: refutation
• saprostomous: having bad breath
• transfeminate: change from woman to man
• deboswellize: to deprecate in a biography. -- Jack of Oz 01:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

"The scribe deboswellized the saprostomous perissotomist after his redargution of having transfeminated." If anyone wrote a full novel like this, it would be a wonderful vocabulary builder (even for the author, I suspect), but it would take ages to read. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

April 1

Why is there no DOGalog if there's a CATalog, no DOGegory if a CATegory, etc.?

So, why can't we shop items from a DOGalog if we can from a CATalog?

Why can't we file subjects in DOGegories if we can file them in CATegories?

We CATer meals, but why don't we DOGer them?

Why does English have to be a CATastrophe of a language, but not a DOGastrophe?

Did the original author of English love cats more than dogs? WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND THESE WORDS BEING CAT-APULTED INTO the English Language with CAT- suffixes more than dogs?

Also, if the cannon came after the CATapult, why wasn't the cannon named the DOGapult instead, if dogs are mightier than cats?

Oh, and is there anything feline about bovines (i.e. CATtle)?

Thanks for CATching this string of questions and answering! --70.179.161.230 (talk) 06:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know the date, but I'll give a serious answer. Greek κατάλογος (katalogos, "an enrollment, a register, a list, catalogue"), from καταλέγω (katalego, "to recount, to tell at length or in order, to make a list"); from Latin catapulta, from Ancient Greek καταπέλτης (katapeltēs); Ancient Greek καταστροφή (katastrophē), from καταστρέφω (katastrephō, "I overturn"); all from Greek: κατά (kata, "down, against") (no known connection with "kat" meaning "cat" in Dutch, Danish, Volapük, West Frisian & Afrikaans (all from Proto-Germanic "kattuz"). The exception is Old French achater ("to buy, to purchase") for the origin of "cater". Dog is from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn (“power, strength, muscle”). Cows, of course, are "caput", but not "kaput". (Sorry about the boring answer (and thanks, Wiktionary). I can recall some of my April 1st jokes from the past, including two occasions when teachers complained to the Headmaster, and one when the school was almost closed for the day, but I'll leave it to others to supply the humorous replies. "Kaput" describes the contents of my "caput" these days. ) Dbfirs 07:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

'Dog' is from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn? Has that been finalized? It has forever been one of the hardest words in the English language to pin down the etymology of. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:19, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Skinning a cat

Is it "How many ways of skinning a cat are there?" or "How many ways are there of skinning a cat?" --Carnildo (talk) 09:50, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

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