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Etymology query

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What is the origin of the title term? I understand that the name, at least in part, satisfies the definition of the term. But where did it come from. As linguists, they likely address this, do they not? To the ear, it is an awkward term. Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The original article that introduced (and invented) the term,[1] says:
"Because of our unusual orthographic needs for the word, we confess to giving 'eodermdrome' a mixed etymology enlisting the aid of the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971). There we found that 'eade' is an Old English past tense form of go. 'Erme' is an obsolete verb from Old English whose transitive form means to make miserable, harass, vex and whose intransitive or reflexive form means to grieve or make sorry. Finally, 'dromos' is, of course, Greek for race course. Thus, one may view an eodermdrome as a course on which to go to be made miserable.
Unlike the name 'palindrome' which is itself not a palindrome, we chose the name 'eodermdrome' because it is an eodermdrome." AdderUser (talk) 05:15, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Bloom, Gary S.; Kennedy, John W.; Wexler, Peter J. "Ensnaring the Elusive Eodermdrome". Word Ways. 13 (3): 131-140.