Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Monday 21 December 2015

A Solsticial Thought

The female first name Holly is now not so rare, I think,
as the male first name Guy.
The latter is the old spelling of gui = mistletoe*,
whose berries look like drops of sperm
just as those of the holly look like drops of blood.

Guy, as in 'good guy, bad
guy' has, however, nothing to do with mistletoe,
but is a corruption of the French 'gars' = lad.

*Latin viscum, from which we get the word viscous.

V in Latin and W in Germanic often became GU or hard G in French,
Thus Vespa (wasp) became Guêpe, and the Ward- words in Germanic
became Gard- in French (Garder, Gardien, etc).

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