Johnny Johnson wrote:
> At 09:17 PM 2/29/2008, Moose wrote:
>
>
>> I get brickbats from the Yahoos.
>>
>
> I was surprised to see you using the word brickbat Moose. I was
> thinking about the word a couple of weeks ago for some reason - don't
> think I've heard it used since I was a child and thought it was
> probably Old English in origin and its usage limited to the deep
> south. Now I know better.
>
I lived in Raleigh for a few months when I was six.
But I don't think that's where it came from. Just seems like ordinary,
if somewhat out of fashion, usage.
American Heritage Dict. says:
The earliest sense of /brickbat,/ first recorded in 1563, was “a piece
of brick.” Such pieces of brick have not infrequently been thrown at
others in the hope of injuring them; hence, the figurative /brickbats/
(first recorded in 1929) that critics hurl at performances they dislike.
The appearance of /bat/ as the second part of this compound is explained
by the fact that the word /bat,/ “war club, cudgel,” developed in Middle
English the sense “chunk, clod, wad,” and in the 16th century came to be
used specifically for a piece of brick that was unbroken on one end.
Moose
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