{"id":17914,"date":"2019-06-12T15:58:22","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T15:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=17914"},"modified":"2019-06-12T15:58:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T15:58:22","slug":"oxbows-and-fossils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=17914","title":{"rendered":"Oxbows and Fossils"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On an <a href=\"http:\/\/talkthetalkpodcast.com\/366-oxbows-live-qa\/\">episode of the Talk the Talk podcast<\/a> that I listened to today, they discuss <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fossil_word\">fossil words<\/a> or, as presenter Daniel Midgely calls them, oxbows, which is a rather poetic and fitting name from them.<\/p>\n<p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oxbow_lake\">oxbow lake<\/a> is a part of a river that has got cut off from the main stream due to the changing course of the river, and a fossil word or oxbow is one that&#8217;s only used in one or two expressions, and is no longer part of the main stream language.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/baggis\/6815304565\/in\/photolist-bofdB8-dpmX81-UijWe9-8G1ea7-a1SEsj-a2PUsF-7FuayQ-7zQ38n-4Jm1Kd-26YVryJ-2cmSGgp-jzsTnS-kyHWpE-ecBT1L-TiTYRr-7qCpmS-uPcPF-cRiGof-5EJtb8-awkmGV-aFsC6Z-7ABiY9-cRiH2w-WeL3AP-6ChESs-57hHJZ-fhNBC3-3p2ELY-2dSCAsk-gDkYyK-27W8Jek-285nZeV-oGvF22-8EgXHa-dpDLdh-dpDKY7-9xoWBs-dpDQeY-3trXe-25kcHZd-2762Qgu-GpTTYm-Gzax4K-asYYYh-4Guqns-3rQH6-238KxzM-2gvoSs-VrDGCL-dpDQ9G\" title=\"Oxbows\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/7153\/6815304565_35ef19423d_z.jpg\" alt=\"Oxbows\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Some examples they gave include <strong>kith<\/strong> and kin, to and <strong>fro<\/strong>, and <strong>akimbo<\/strong>, as in arms\/legs akimbo.<\/p>\n<p>Other examples of fossil words \/ oxbows include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>by <strong>dint<\/strong> of = because of, by means of &#8211; dint is an old word for a blow or stroke, force, power, or the mark left by a blow<\/li>\n<li>in high <strong>dudgeon<\/strong> = indignant and enraged &#8211; dudgeon possibly comes from the Welsh <em>dygen<\/em> (anger, sad, grievous, painful, serious). A related words is the old Scots word <strong>humdudgeon<\/strong>, meaning an unnecessary outcry of complaint, or an imaginary illness<\/li>\n<li>in fine <strong>fettle<\/strong> = in good condition, energetic &#8211; fettle is nothern English dialect word meaning one&#8217;s physical condition or mental state.<\/li>\n<li>the whole <strong>shebang<\/strong> = everything, the entire thing &#8211; shebang might come from the French <em>chabane<\/em> (hut, cabin), or from the Hiberno-English <em>shebeen<\/em> (a cabin where unlicensed liquor is sold and drunk), from the Irish <em>s\u00edb\u00edn<\/em> (illicit whiskey).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Do you know others in English or other languages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On an episode of the Talk the Talk podcast that I listened to today, they discuss fossil words or, as presenter Daniel Midgely calls them, oxbows, which is a rather poetic and fitting name from them. An oxbow lake is a part of a river that has got cut off from the main stream due [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,127,10,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-irish","category-language","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}