From: HenHanna@NewsGrouper   
      
   DDeden  posted:   
      
   >   
   > I can make no sense of the claimed etymology of 'tall' at etymology online   
   nor at Wiktionary.   
   >   
   > Wik: From Middle English tall, talle, tal (“seemly, becoming, handsome,   
   good-looking, excellent, good, valiant, lively in speech, bold, great, large,   
   big”), from Old English *tæl, ġetæl (“swift, ready, having mastery   
   of”), from Proto-   
   Germanic *talaz (“submissive, pliable, obedient”), from Prot   
   -Indo-European *dol-, *del- (“to aim, calculate, adjust, reckon”).   
   >   
   > Does anyone agree with that?   
      
      
      
   The English word tall originated in the early 16th century, but its roots go   
   back much further. It comes from Middle English tal, talle, meaning   
   “handsome,” “brave,” or “worthy,” and from Old English getæl,   
   meaning “quick” or “active”   
   .​   
      
   From a linguistic standpoint, its evolution is striking:   
      
   Old English getæl meant “prompt, nimble, active.”   
      
   Middle English tal described someone “valiant” or “fair in   
   appearance.”   
      
   By the 1520s, tall came to mean “having great stature,” first applied to   
   people and later to objects.   
      
   By the 1580s, it gained the modern sense of “of more than average height.”   
      
   The figurative sense “exaggerated” (as in “tall tale”) appeared in   
   American English by the mid-19th century.​   
      
   Etymologically, tall shares distant Germanic roots with Old High German   
   gizal (“quick”) and Gothic untals (“indocile”).​   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)