Word origins: Nay to one, gathering flies on the other

Today’s question: My wife insists the word “neighborhood” is a compound of “neigh” as in the sound that agitated horses make and “hood” as in the immediate general area. She said the word originated from horses making noises where people could hear the “neigh” in the “hood.” To me this was totally absurd but in a weird way plausible.

That’s a surprisingly silly thing for a wife to say. Usually it is the husband who has such crackpot ideas.

“Neighbor” goes way back to a couple of Old English words: “neah,” which meant near, and “gebur,” meaning dweller.

The “hood” part is what is called a word-forming element. In this case it means a state or condition, such as childhood or adulthood or priesthood. It comes from the Old English suffix “-hed,” which referred to quality or manner.

You’d know all that if you stayed up to date with etymologyonline.com.

We say things like, “I flew to Los Angeles.” So why do we say a baseball played “flied” out?

Because we just do, that’s why. And that’s just about all the explanation there is. By tradition dating back to the 1870s we used “flied” only in baseball or softball terminology and nowhere else.

In weather parlance, terms like wind chill and heat index describe what the outside temperature feels like. The other day I was getting out of the pool on a 113-degree day and felt freezing as the air hit me. Is there an index that describes that sensation?

Please feel free to make up your own name for such a condition. Make it a secret, OK?