XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: dd@dandrake.com   
      
   On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:46:28 UTC, Mark Barratt    
   wrote:   
      
   > Mike Lyle wrote:   
   > > Steve Hayes wrote:   
   ...   
   > >... 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.   
      
   Ummm, is there supposed to be some logic behind this statement? Steve   
   explicitly says (and I just looked at the online version to confirm) that   
   the OED's version of the etymology is from "hare", the lagomorph, not   
   "hair", the follicular outgrowth. "Hair-" is *later*, get it?   
      
   (Historically, as you might expect, "hare" may be spelled any old way,   
   including haari and hair. One has to look at context to see which is   
   meant. The OED's looking at spelling yield the results given here.)   
      
   I take it, then, that the OED is your idea of unresearched logic, while   
   those which have been researched are -- what?   
      
   --   
   Dan Drake   
   dd@dandrake.com   
   http://www.dandrake.com/   
   porlockjr.blogspot.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)