Mosey along...

Nathan Bierma has written an interesting column today about the etymology of the word mosey. Apparently there is no agreement on where it comes from (Okay, prescriptivists...don't have a cow because I ended the sentence with a preposition!). While Bierma does mention Quinion in his column, he doesn't seem to give Quinion the credit he deserves, in my opinion. Until I read the Quinion article, I didn't realize that Bierma's ideas mostly came from Quinion. I am not sure I'd call it plagiarism, but it's close. I think some writers don't realize that ideas of others need to be cited; these writers realize quotes need to be cited, but often they make the reader think that the research and synthesis is their own, when it's not. Similarly, I've always wondered how etymology.com often gets away with copying the OED. But I digress...

At any rate, there are several possibilities on the evolution of the word mosey, from English dialect to Moses. Both Quinion's and Bierma's (albeit quite similar to Quninion's) analyses are good reads, but in the end they both conclude that we don't know the evolution of this word.