this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
55 points (95.1% liked)

Linguistics Humor

1071 readers
1 users here now

Do you like languages and linguistics ? Here is for having fun about it


Share this community: [[email protected]](/c/[email protected])


Serious Linguistics community: [email protected]


Rules:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] otp 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh, wow. This comment just made me wonder if Shirley is a female bastardization of Charles through Charlie...

It's probably not, but I could see it being the case

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

This comment just made me wonder if Shirley is a female bastardization of Charles through Charlie…

I gave it a check (Wiktionary is surprisingly good for this sort of stuff), and reality is even weirder:

"Shirley" is etymologically equivalent to shire + ley. It was initially a habitational surname. Then based on the 1849 quote it was used for some time as a masculine first name. Then as a feminine one.