词汇 | josh |
词源 | josh. The best guess is that the Americanism josh, for “to kid” or “fool around,” is a merging of joke and bosh. The pseudonym of an American writer may have something to do with the word, though. Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818–85) wrote his delib- erately misspelled crackerbox philosophy under the pen name Josh Billings. Employing dialect, ridiculous spellings, deformed grammar, monstrous logic, puns, malapropisms, and anticli- max, he became one of the most popular literary comedians of his time. The expression to josh was used about 18 years before Josh Billings began writing in 1863, but his salty aphorisms probably strengthened its meaning and gave the term wider currency. |
随便看 |
英语词源词典收录了13259条英语词源词条,基本涵盖了全部常用英语词汇的起源、历史,是研究英语词汇或通过词源学英语的必备工具。