[SGVLUG] Hairy word problems (was An interesting (I hope) GPL question)

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message----- Of Bryan D Howard
> "Emerson, Tom" <Tom.Emerson at wbconsultant.com> writes:
> > ...    [Hmmm. "a hair-brained scheme" -- how did that term 
> come into use
> > I wonder...]
> 
> Sounds like that (mis?)spelling is older than I'd thought.
> 
>     http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hai1.htm

In reality, the reason is simpler than that -- "harebrained" is a word
I've almost always come in contact with during a spoken conversation,
never written.  So when my thought process came up with that word in
that context, I made a decision to use "hair" instead of "hare" [though
it was close] I was initially going with "hare", but thought "that can't
be right..." because "harebrained" brought up a mental image of a Bugs
Bunny cartoon, and more often than not, the animators would use the word
"hare" instead of "hair" as a form of a pun. [hare restorer,  stops
falling hare, etc.]

So, rather than look it up (which would have resulted in a conflicting
answer anyway) I just went with what "seemed" more correct.  But, now
that I know, I see my "mental image" of Bugs is actually a VERY good way
of thinking about it [both for spelling and meaning...]