--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> It seems delimiting something by ploughing around it is an old idea.
> Folk tales are full of 'as much land as you can plough around in a
> day'. And once you do that, the next step is 'as long as you must
> plough to get around that piece of land'.
>
It appears you are right. When I calculated 1 "plo:g" = 120 acres,
if one takes it to be 12 acres X 10 acres, the perimeter would be
14520 feet or 2.75 miles! Okay, so Patrick and you may well be right
about this idea for the relationship between *(p)leuga and *plo:ga-.
One reservation is that <leuga> also appears as <leuca> (and as both
<leuge:> and <leuke:> in Greek). But otherwise, I now see what
you're saying and concede that it seems so far one of the likeliest
explanations for these two words *leuga and *plo:ga-. But Patrick
how did you realize this connection between the perimeter of an
OE "plo:g" and a Gallic "leuga"? You didn't make it clear that you
were talking about the perimeter.
Andrew