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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 12:36 pm
by Stargzer
From Flam's quote:
Bardolph steals money from a church, and Pistol reports the crime, whereby Bardolph and Nym are executed.
So, Nym stole from a church and paid the ultimate price.

I've never heard the word "nym" used in this context before but I like it. It's different from the one that BD found:
A nym (pronounced NIHM and a shortened form of "pseudonym,") is a name invented by or provided for an Internet user in order to conceal the user's real identity and, in some cases, to expressly create a new and separate Internet identity.
And for completeness, from the American Heritage Dictionary entry for pseudonym:
NOUN: A fictitious name, especially a pen name.
ETYMOLOGY: French pseudonyme, from Greek pseudōnumon, neuter of pseudōnumos, falsely named : pseudēs, false; see pseudo– + onuma, name; see nImage-men- in Appendix I.

Re: Nym is

Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:45 am
by M. Henri Day
In the days of Shakespeare, to nym was to steal. One of his characters in Henry V is named Nym for his propensity for theft. ...
Flam, I must confess that I had never thought to ask myself why Nym was called «Nym», but given his predilictions, your explanation above certainly makes sense. Despite a web search for Elizabethan slang, however, I have been unable to confirm the word (access to the OED being by subscription, I was unable to consult this work). Could you point me to a source for this usage ?...

Henri

Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:45 pm
by Brazilian dude
This is for Flam:

cabbage \KAB-ij\ verb

: steal, filch


Example sentence:
In the late 18th-century play The Reconciliation, Mrs. Grim confesses that she "now and then cabbaged a penny."

Did you know?
Does the "filching" sense of "cabbage" bring to mind an image of thieves sneaking out of farm fields with armloads of pilfered produce? If so, you're in for a surprise. That "cabbage" has nothing to do with the leafy vegetable. It originally referred to the practice among tailors of pocketing part of the cloth given to them to make garments. The verb was cut from the same cloth as an older British noun "cabbage," which meant "pieces of cloth left in cutting out garments and traditionally kept by tailors as perquisites." Both of those ethically questionable "cabbages" probably derived from "cabas," the Middle French word for "cheating or theft." The "cabbage" found in cole slaw, on the other hand, comes from Middle English "caboche," which means "head."

Brazilian dude

Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:57 pm
by M. Henri Day
But BD, you must admit that the image of a tailor sitting cross-legged on his dais, with cabbages poking out of all those pockets in his vest, along with needles and pins, is absolutely mindblowing !...

Henri

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 7:36 am
by anders
When I have encountered "nym", I always have thought it was a short form for synonym or similar, and have never thought of pseudonym. Anyway, this family of nyms goes back to Greek onoma 'name'.

A "theft" meaning isn't surprising. Modern German nehmen 'take' can be traced back to PIE *nem- 'take'. There was an OE niman of the same meaning etc.

With this root, I always am reminded of the landnámatíð (land-taking-time), the period 874-930, when many people emigrated to Iceland from Norway, Sweden and the Norwegian colonies in the British Isles, Scotland and Ireland.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:57 am
by Stargzer
This is for Flam:

cabbage \KAB-ij\ verb
. . .
Did you know?
. . . The "cabbage" found in cole slaw, on the other hand, comes from Middle English "caboche," which means "head."

Brazilian dude
"Two heads are better than one, even if one of them is cabbage."
-Mrs. Figueras

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:11 am
by Flaminius
Nym was the misspelling for nim. Look here. It is from OE word for "take" and cognate to numb (org. taken, possessed). It is one of the words that lost wide usage dued to influx of Scandinavian words.

Flam