Monday, November 24, 2008

Magic Mitten

We talked about the magic mitten of grain multiplication in class today. Could my life be better?

It's only the second recorded use of the word in the OED, which is sort of interesting. Glove is older, occuring in Anglo-Saxon.

It seems to me that mitten technology would precede glove technology, and that leads me to wonder if there's an Anglo-Saxon word for mitten that's fallen into dis-use?

I really should be grading!

2 comments:

  1. The OED is such a wonderful tool for procrastination. You feel like you are doing something worthwhile (like learning) and it is much more fun that the things you should actually be doing.

    btw, my word verification is "bellyin"

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  2. No clue, but as I teach history of English next semester I'll keep a lookout for glove/mitten references.

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