Foy

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Dr. Goodword
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Foy

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Dec 02, 2019 9:34 pm

• foy •


Pronunciation: foy • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A bon voyage party or celebration of the completion of something, such a harvest celebration. 2. A parting gift or farewell toast.

Notes: Today's lovely little word gets to the point much faster than our more usual expressions, like "one for the road", "farewell party", and the like. We should be grateful to the Scots for preserving it for us; Scotland is the only area where it still breathes today. Perhaps that is because it is a lexical orphan with no derivational relatives to support it.

In Play: A foy can be almost any type of celebration to someone going on a journey or the end of something. It can be a present: "I think we should chip in to buy Harry Wormser-Goode an impressive foy that will express just how happy we are to see him take the job in Fiji." It can be just a toast: "I just saw Harvey Wallbanger crawling out the door of the pub; let's drink a good luck foy to him on his journey home!"

Word History: English borrowed this word from Middle Dutch foye "journey", a Dutch adjustment of French voie "way, road, route". French inherited the word from Latin via "way, road", a word English borrowed directly as a preposition meaning "by way of", as 'to send a letter via airmail'. German Weg and English way came from the same Proto-Indo-European word as via. We assume that primitive word meant both "go" and "carry, haul", since we also see it in English wagon. More surprisingly, we can trace weigh back to the same word, apparently as a result of the interpretation of weighing as carrying something in a set of old balancing scales. By wiggling the etymology a little, we can also account for wiggle as moving just a little: the suffix -le is often found on words that were diminutives in Old English. (We hope never to drink a foy to Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, one of our Good Word editors, so long as he suggests interesting words like today's Good Word.)
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damoge
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Re: Foy

Postby damoge » Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:33 pm

We hope ever to drink a foy to Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, one of our Good Word editors, so long as he suggests interesting words like today's Good Word.
Everything works out, one way or another

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call_copse
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Re: Foy

Postby call_copse » Wed Dec 04, 2019 7:21 am

Hey damoge, think the idea was if we drank a foy to him he'd no longer be operational as he'd be away to other callings - hence the never rather than ever :D
Iain

damoge
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Re: Foy

Postby damoge » Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:57 pm

didn't realize till today that my comment sounded snarky. I meant it as an alternative.
I heard offering a foy for an action as an end to a sequence. I wanted to encourage the action, and assumed that plying with drink and kudos would do so.
Everything works out, one way or another


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