Most famous ifs of all:
"The terrible ifs accumulate."
--- Churchill, on the First Battle of the Marne

Immigrants and emigrants are the same people, right? An immigrant to one place is an emigrant from someplace else. To resort to a howling cliche', "It' all in your point of view!"

I always assumed that Gaiters came from Gait, i.e. Gaiters =Walkers.

Another folk-etymological trap?

Like thinking Salmonella has something to do with fish?

Silly me.

You're absolutely right! Pointless but fun... a bagatelle! (bauble, bibelot, bric-a-brac, conversation piece, curio, curiosity, device, embellishment, flummery, frill, furbelow, gadget*, miniature, notion, novelty, objet d'art, ornament, plaything, showpiece, souvenir, thingamajig, toy, trapping, tr...

Nice little holiday lark... Now how many synonyms can we come up with for 'pointless'? thesaurus.com has absurd, aimless, around in circles, fruitless, futile, going nowhere, impotent, in vicious circle, inane, inconsequential, ineffective, ineffectual, insignificant, irrelevant, meaningless, needle...

Only a few left to go... Apologia: In general I'm hostile to neologism, but there are times when it's irresistible, e.g. Slava's Elfin Adjective Challenge. In keeping with "2. Small and sprightly or mischievous. 3. Having a magical quality or charm; fairylike" (from thefreedictionary.com):...

A- alluring, appealing, attractive, B- bewitching, C- captivating, charismatic, charming, D- darling E- enchanting, engaging, entrancing, F- fascinating, fetching, G- glamorous (also glamourous), H- I- J- K- L- luring, M- magnetic, N- O- P- Q- R- S- seductive T- U- V- W- winsome X- xenophilic Y- yea...

The last three letters of the alphabet are obviously going to be the trickiest, but it's worth a shot...
(It looks like the guys at Merriam's need to bush up their alphabetizing skills.)

--- Bill

I've always liked elfin, which has a rather more expansive set of meanings. From Merriam-Webster at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elfin: having an otherworldly or magical quality or charm Synonyms: alluring, appealing, attractive, bewitching, captivating, charismatic, charming, fascinat...

A bit off-topic, but I couldn't help wondering how the famous philosopher got involved here. Was the first one to describe this plant (Linneus?) a big fan of Spinosa? Or does Spinosa just mean something else here? (Spiney?)

I've always thought High Fluting (a flashy, show-off style) was the origin of this strange but useful little specimen.

Several sources tend to agree, but cautiously, tentatively.

Nonetheless it seems at least quite plausible, no?

I've always figured nincompoop must have been a playful onomatopoeic corruption of 'non compos mentis' and evidently Samuel Johnson thought so too. Even if we're both wrong, at least I'm in good company, another harmless drudge. See: https://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/tag/nincompoop/ I can't help wond...

...and, by rotating or twisting the catenary we get the catenoid, or, depending on the meaning of the P.I.E 'kat' , we get the cat annoyed.

(Sorry...I absolutely couldn't resist.)

If I'm not mistaken, 'enthusiasm' is a distant cousin of this word, both descending from an essentially theological origin.