<snip>
Just heard a reading of a long doggerel poem by Rachel Blau
Duplessis, in which she plays with etymology, there being, she says,
none for the word. So, any thoughts on "doggerel?:" [MW]
From Middle English, poor, worthless, from dogge, dog. [RC]
<snip>
'-erel' is presumably a diminutive of 'dog' (cf cock/cockerel etc, but not
Big Mac/mackerel; so there are dangers even in this small observation). But
'dog' itself is a mystery. It starts, apparently, in OE (at least three
times in the Ancrene Rewle).
And with Chaucer, the OED's first citation, 'doggerel' is already specific
to verse.
CW
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I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when
nobody calls. (Thoreau)
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