Your mention of בור, "lye," reminds me of a long-standing question I've had. Is this word related to Persian "bura," which is the origin of Greek (and English) "borax" and hence "boron"? If there is a connection, my guess is that the Persian word comes from the Hebrew (or other Semitic) word, since the Hebrew word plausibly comes from the root ברר, "to purify".
Mike Gerver | 03.17.08 - 4:38 am | #

Good question - for a follow up post :)

The truth is that this post was supposed to discuss a number of other words, but it got much longer and more complicated than I expected. So I have now a number of related posts that I hope to post in the days to come...
Dave (Balashon) | Homepage | 03.17.08 - 8:09 am | #

Thanks, most informative and well considered.
john plum | Homepage | 08.14.08 - 6:27 pm | #