Peter:
Any overlap between badger/cadger and higgler/haggler? The OED doesn't seem
to connect them directly, but they come up together there.
I like the approach via one term replacing the other -- very much what I'm
suggesting with mort=>blowen. I'm almost feeling that the way that one term
replaces another in a semantic field is more important than etymological
genesis. Dunno quite how far I'd carry the argument, but. It seems to work
best in a restricted area, as with morts and blowens both being local to
thieves' cant.
Bit like extending Saussure's synchronic moment (and just how long *was
that?) into a diachronic perspective. A General Theory of Semantics ...
(Some things Mark was saying about Intentional Fields seemed to me to link
into this too. But my brain's getting soggy this late. Early. So I might
be right off-beam there.)
[Just discovered that it's possible to track all the 237 entries by Harman
cited in the OED and shove them into a spreadsheet and shuffle them.
Whee!!!
Maybe it's time I got a life ...
<g> ]
> Would be interesting if higgling was derived from
> a proper name. I guess Higgen is a not-unusual Irish/tinker name, though?
Um, maybe, but it often works in reverse. It seems to not be the case that
the shift/extension of "cant"=thieves' speech to "cant"=hypocritical speech
because of the name of a Scottish preacher wasn't the case, for example.
Higgen seems a bit like Hog, or something -- generic term for a rustic? But
Mark might have a sharper take than me on this, vis a vis Restoration
dramatic names.
Robin
