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Thanks John for this wonderful excursion.

The “hard” construct also relates to how German speakers (and likely others) describe musical sounds.

“Major” = “dur”

“minor” = “moll”

I think this relates to dropping the third note of the scale by a half step, thus rendering it junior (in English) or softer (in German).

Steve L

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John,

I wondered why you didn't make this comparison when you mentioned about "hale and hardy."

дерево ---> здоровый

hard ---> hardy

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As to “cook a chop”- I wonder if “chop” meaning “skills “ is implicated? As in- when you’re on the road you have to learn to beef up your skills?

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Dunno if they're related, but the Persian word you use that's the "full" version of the shah sounds quite a lot like Kshatriya, the warrior / ruler caste of Hindu society. Interesting...

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Another D => T is the Greek origin of "dendritic" a tree-like drainage pattern of a river or a rose tree, rhododendron.

Didn't you quote "cook chop?" IN Nigerian English, "chop" [in the new OED] is "to eat" leading to funny stories about foreigners who tell their Nigerian cook to "chop the meat." :)

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