What’s Weird and Wonderful?
By LENORE SKENAZY
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This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
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Surely, I cannot be the only person to have wondered, in idle moments, why mules – backless shoes, often embellished and preferably decorative; more Cinderella slipper than sturdy clodhopper – should be named after the stubborn offspring of a donkey and a horse. Finally I applied myself to the task of discovering the origins of the word. The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology explains that it derives instead from the Latin, calceus mulleus, the red, high-soled shoes worn by Roman patricians.
By LENORE SKENAZY
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By JOSH HAMMER
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By A.R. HOFFMAN
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By DAVID JONES
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By JOSEPH CURL
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By DAVID JONES
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By JOSEPH CURL
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By DAVID HIROSHI JAGER
|Surely, I cannot be the only person to have wondered, in idle moments, why mules – backless shoes, often embellished and preferably decorative; more Cinderella slipper than sturdy clodhopper – should be named after the stubborn offspring of a donkey and a horse. Finally I applied myself to the task of discovering the origins of the word. The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology explains that it derives instead from the Latin, calceus mulleus, the red, high-soled shoes worn by Roman patricians.
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