Chrysti The Wordsmith: The Letter D - 2

Greetings verb of ours and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Last time on this series I shared my astonishment at the number of disparaging English terms beginning with the letter D digits doing dunce Daum drip and others. It's an interesting tribe of words because though most do not share etymological roots they all suggest some degree of mental vacuity or social ineptness dolt Dollard drag Dodo. Last time we held the etymological spotlight on do we buy and insult a very recent vintage not seen in print before the early 1980s a D-word disparagement of venerable heritage on the other hand is a dolt since the fifteen hundreds this word has been defined as a dull stupid fellow a blockhead a numbskull in his 16:16 play a fellow Shakespeare has a character exclaim Oh dolt as ignorant as dirt. The Oxford English Dictionary lists some splendid but unfortunately obsolete variations on the term the verb Dole to

five which appears in a document dated 15 59 means to make a dolt of dull Tige and adultery. Refer to the condition of a dolt. Today's word derives from an old English term spelled d o l which meant stupid inert of intellect or faculty. I'm Christi the wordsmith from Montana State University in Bozeman. Next time a look into the life histories of dits and. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry Web dot com.