XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, alt.usage.english   
   From: nyelvmark@yahoo.com   
      
   Mike Lyle wrote:   
   > Steve Hayes wrote:   
   >> In the Puffin edition of "Prince Caspian" C.S. Lewis at one point   
   >> uses the term "hair-brained".   
   >>   
   >> I always understood that the correct term was "hare-brained", and   
   >> would have thought that a professor of English literature would know   
   >> the difference.   
   >>   
   >> Is this found in all editions, ot was it just a misprint?   
   >    
   > Google Books very surprisingly has 852 "hare-brained" and no fewer than   
   > 757 "hair-brained". I'm sure the capillary version is a mistake, though   
   > clearly not always a typo. OED gives "hare-" as standard, but says "The   
   > spelling /hair-brain/, suggesting another origin for the compound, is   
   > later, though occasional before 1600."   
   >    
   > I've often seen hares being apparently hare-brained, and am quite   
   > confident that their behaviour is the origin.   
      
   Which merely says that you prefer etymological theories which agree    
   with what unresearched logic would say, to those which have been    
   researched.   
      
   > Got to love the following:   
   > "1566 T. STAPLETON Ret. Untr. Jewel IV. 109 The most outragious and   
   > harebrayne stomaches of the Donatistes." Hare-brained stomachs! I can't   
   > tell without context whether "stomach" is here stubbornness, "nerve", or   
   > even anger.   
   >    
      
      
      
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