This afternoon I was reading Forgotten English: A Merry Guide to Antiquated Words, Packed with History, Fun Facts, Literary Excerpts, and Charming Drawings (1997) by Jeffrey Kacirk. This is one of those florilegia of quirky words à la Mrs Byrnes. On page 15, during a discussion of the word buggery, I read this: "One unusual group of buggers, called hippostadians (hippo means horse to the ancient Greeks, from Hippona, goddess of horses), were, according to [Thomas] Blount [Glossographia (1656 [1972])] 'monstrous persons that abuse themselves with a horse.'" The word for horse in Classical and Modern Greek is ιππος (hippos, cognate with Latin equus, Sanskrit aśva 'horse'). Its origin is not from some non-existent Greek goddess Hippona, (who was actually the Roman goddess of mule-drivers, Epona, whose origins are Celtic, see Juvenal Satire VIII ll.156f.), but from PIE *ekwo- 'horse'. (The point is the goddess' name is derived from a root for horse, and not the other way around.) Later, on page 32, I read: "the modern word migraine was borrowed and corrupted from an Old French word, megrim, which not surprisingly meant 'foul mood,' and was naturalized in English around 1400". Wrong! French migraine meaning 'migraine' had an alternate spelling of megrim in Middle English. The word still exists in English meaning 'migraine' in the singular and 'caprice, fancy; depression' in the plural. But, why stop there? The French word came from the Greek, via Latin, ημικρανια (hemikrania) 'half-skull'. At this point I stopped and wondered if any statement in the book could be trusted.

The things that crop up on this board.

Until today I have heard precisely one person use the word megrims (I assume that's the word as I've only heard it pronounced in a dialect form as maygrums.)

That one person is my Dad who throughout our childhoods would, when we were in bad moods remonstrate with my brother and I with the phrase "Stop your maygrums".

As my Dad has an unusual vocabulary which features a lot of dialect words and a few words and phrases that I'm convinced he made up it came as a bit of a surprise to see this one here with its etymology.

I am glad that some good has come of what I consider a waste of money to buy and time to read. Even though I got it used, and paid less than five bucks US for a hardback, I feel slightly cheated. From the sound of it, I think I'd like to meet your dad.