What is the OED?
John Cummings
Training and Placement Coordinator
Canberra
Ph 02 6230 0182
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Enjoy this life
-----Original Message-----
From: Geoffrey Dabb
Sent: Wednesday, 21 December 2005 5:16 PM
To:
Subject: gang-gangs
(1) The lapses in the JD Macdonald book are inexplicable. Gould
(Handbook)
attributed 'Gang-gang Cockatoo' to .Colonists of New South Wales' and
not to
Latham, and Gould himself said Latham used 'Red-crowned Parrot'.
(2) In my view persons genuinely interested in name-origins should take
a
look at the OED first, perhaps rather than having COG look it up for
them,
to settle their dinner-table wager. The OED's retrieval of first or
early
published uses is particularly useful, I think, for names believed to
have
their origin in an unwritten aboriginal language. It is the early
written
use that generally freezes the sound (whatever it might have been, and
perhaps arbitrarily) in the form used today. Those interested in this
might
look at how other European languages have captured presumed indigenous
sounds quite differently from the way English has done.
(3) Tom: what about 'tom-tom'? (Other examples available).
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