RTILLSON%DEC-MARLBORO@sri-unix.UUCP (07/06/84)
From: Phaedra <RTILLSON at DEC-MARLBORO> My friend PattyAnn Hardy often has interesting linguistic tidbits, so I asked her about excelsior, and this is what she said: >Bizzarely enough, my Webster's Third New International says that the >use of "Excelsior" for wood shavings is the result of a brazen marketeer, >being a trade name for the stuff derived from the Latin "excelsus", >meaning "higher", this being a form of "excellere", which also gives >us the English "excellent" by way of Middle English via Middle French. >Like aspirin and 'fridge, this is one that got away. I wonder if the >company is still around...I can imagine linguists in the 30th century >painstakingly deciphering old videotapes ( which have survived only >by dint of being in some abandoned fire vault once kept by a major >television network ) and saying "What the hell is so neat about wood >shavings?" Well, Patty, my hamster thinks they are pretty neat, but from my perspective, I couldn't understand it either! In a later discussion, we decided that linguists would have an even harder time, since the videotapes in question would probably be destroyed by the EMP from the nuclear holocaust, but that's another flame altogether! Live long and phosphor! /phae --------