Agog and Salary
July 2, 2007
It's Monday! Hurrah! Let's start the week with a challenge! See if you can solve the two following clues from the Telegraph's Saturday crossword:
1) Highly curious and impatient from Old French meaning "in fun" (4)
2) A regular fixed payment from the Latin meaning "paid in salt" (6)
Needless to say, the only tool you're allowed to use is the one between your ears...
Posted by céline, in Words, on July 2, 2007To you nr 2: it is salary bien sur, from Latin 'sal', salt! As salt was rare and precious, people we paid in salt, apparently.
Posted by Baltic Polyglottic on July 2, 2007 10:51 AMpaid in salt = salary ?
Posted by Jenny on July 2, 2007 11:29 AMCorrect!
Posted by céline on July 2, 2007 11:31 AMThe first one is agog. I did that crossword and my answer was a total flukey guess (I had a**g), but then I looked it up in the dictionary and it turned out to be correct.
Posted by rachel on July 2, 2007 3:46 PMCould the other one be "capricious"?
Posted by xensen on July 2, 2007 4:10 PM1) = avid?
Posted by simsby on July 2, 2007 5:58 PMI'm having problems with comments at the moment, some have been taking ages to come up on the site, sorry about that! Congratulations Baltic Polyglottic, Jenny and rachel!
Posted by céline on July 2, 2007 6:16 PMSalary wasn't too hard. But I was stumped by the first one, so bravo Rachel !
According to the OED: agog:very eager to hear or see something.
— ORIGIN from Old French en gogues, from en ‘in’ + gogue ‘fun’.
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/agog?view=uk
Posted by Xavier Kreiss on July 3, 2007 5:45 PMSo: "en gogues" used to mean "having fun". But has it really disappeared?
After a few minutes, the penny (or the centime) finally dropped, and it occurred to me that the expression is still found today, although not often, to mean "having fun".
Granted: it's changed a bit. But whereas few French speakers would understand "en gogues", most would be familiar with "en goguette".
Posted by Xavier Kreiss on July 3, 2007 5:54 PM
There's also "goguenard" (mocking).
Posted by Jenny on July 3, 2007 9:54 PMThanks for all these details, Xavier and Jenny!
Posted by céline on July 4, 2007 8:52 AMJenny: I hadn't thought of that! You've made my day.
Posted by Xavier Kreiss on July 4, 2007 11:13 AMPrevious: June 29, 2007
How to organise your emails - update >>
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