What snake's name means "snake" in Portuguese?
Etymology, Etymology, and more Etymology
as well as grammar, usage, euphemism, slang, jargon, semantics (meaning), linguistics, neologism, idiom, word origin, syntax, dialect, lexicon (vocabulary), diction, pidgin, synonym, antonym, homonym, cant, argot, lingo, and redundancy.
The critically-acclaimed board game
MooT
consists of tough questions about the nuances of the English language.
Answer:
the Cobra
According to
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/4195/words.htm
"When the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama landed his fleet at
Calicut, India, in 1498, the Portuguese became aware of, among other things, a
venomous snake with the remarkable ability to expand the skin of its neck to
form a hood.
The Hindi word the Indians used for the
snake was nag, but the Portuguese decided to
rename it in their own language cobra de
capello, "hooded snake". The Portuguese name was borrowed into English
in the 17th century. By the nineteenth century its name in English had become
shortened to cobra
."
Please note that these are draft questions for the board game MooT.
If you spot an error or disagree with anything I've said here,
please let me know and I'll fix it.
(the Mootguy)
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