Today I was watching the History channel and during a discussion of WW2 weird weapons the appellation "hair-brained" was stamped on some. However, I have always thought the actual word was "hare-brained." Any comments?

It's hare-brained (or harebrained). 'Hair-brained' is either a typo or a mistake - an eggcorn.

I thought so, too. It just struck me as odd that such a reputable company could make such a harebrained error.

Hmmmm - is this a first? Is arnie just a teeny tiny bit wrong? Quinion seems to think so.

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The first example in the Oxford English Dictionary is dated 1548, and that has hare. But the second is from 1581, and that has hair. The editor who compiled the OED entry seems to have deliberately alternated examples in the two forms, since there’s roughly one of each cited from every century since.

It seems that hair used to be another spelling of hare, and that was true in Scotland until the 18th century. Because of that people began to use hairbrained, thinking it meant that someone had a brain made of hair or the size of a hair. Indeed, Sir Walter Scott writes, in Monastery in 1820:

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“If hairbrained courage, and an outrageous spirit of gallantry, can make good his pretensions to the high lineage he claims, these qualities have never been denied him”

While Quinion says there are more Google cites for hairbrained versus harebrained, I find more for hairbrained.

Apparently some dictionaries say hairbrained should not be used, but Quinion cites one that says it has been established (Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage). Quinion suggests sticking to harebrained - or be ready to fight off the critics. I'm ready!

I must say I've never noticed hairbrained. I stand corrected.

So that's where my hair went? Filled up the empty space when my brain left. Now it all makes sense.

Geoff the bald

Of course, hare-brained explains "dumb as a bunny."

Yes, it does, Proof! I've not thought about that.

Yet bunnies aren't dumb. They can be house-trained, and are pretty good at communicating their needs. I'd put them on par with a cat.

Rabbits aren't as docile as they appear, either. I recently saw a video (which I can't find on the internet) of a rabbit attacking a dog that was bothering it.

And rabbits aren't hares.

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And rabbits aren't hares.

Technically speaking, true. But the two are hard to distinguish from a distance so lumping them together is common.

Once there was a colony of undersized animals. A criminal escaping from police hid in the middle of them but was found. The chief asked where they got him and was told 'We got him by the short hares."

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But the two are hard to distinguish from a distance so lumping them together is common.

Yes, ignorance is common.

The cleft upper lip is common to both, yet we never say, rabbit-lipped.

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yet we never say, rabbit-lipped.

Back when I was in charge of training new docents at the zoo, we taught the differences between the elephant species. One difference is in the end of the trunk, where one species has a single movable flap and the other has two flaps. But one of our zoo elephants had the equivalent of a hare-lip, since her double flap had a split, giving her the appearance of three flaps.

One day, I was listening to one of the new docents give a spiel to the visitors. She was a very senior citizen and a little loopy at times, so I was checking her delivery. She gave the information that this elephant's hare-lip showed that particular elephant was a separate species. I didn't think our training was that inept, and I talked to her later, explaining where she was wrong. unfortunately, she didn't get it and also failed in other ways, so she left soon afterward.