Philobiblon: Hooligan - or how words lose capitals

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Hooligan - or how words lose capitals

 
I discovered on the weekend that the word "hooligan" is named after a person or family. My Brewer's says that it is of late 19th-century origin, from the name of a family of such people.

(The original source, which I can't now recollect, said that it was a specific man who killed a policeman in south London.)

 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home