IV: Coyly, he asks: Did this come up about Coy during our read?

[Mark Kohut]

You got the goods....yes, seems part of what I remembered badly was a textual 
variant---there are 4 possibilities, it seems!.
But there is this: 

I, with the help of Google Books, did locate what I had read. it is from Romeo 
 & Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2:

Footnote in Arden Shakespeare reads: "Coy", Juliet is distinguishing between 
real and pretended modesty. COY appears
in OED (v3c and v4) in the sense to entice, to affect shyness (associated with 
'decoy'). ??



----- Original Message ----
From: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
To: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, August 10, 2010 9:49:23 AM
Subject: RE: IV: Coyly, he asks: Did this come up about Coy during our read?


Coy and decoy seem to have different origins.

According to The online etymology diction 
(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=coy&searchmode=nonesays), decoy 
comes from Dutch, de kooi, meaning the cage, whereas coy comes from the French 
coi, which goes back to O.Fr. quei, which goes back to L. quietus, "resting, at 
rest."

The online OED says pretty much the same thing, although it adds one more 
etymology in reference to the obsolete meaning of coy as a sink (noted with a 
question mark for some reason): Moving back through the French "coy", it traces 
back to something that literally means "quiet or retired ditch".

On Mon, 9 Aug 2010 19:54:52 -0700, markekohut at yahoo.com, asked:

> Coy, meanings of, from the OED....I read in a footnote to a Shakespeare play
> that the root of coy also comes from roots that mean to deceive, common in
> Shakespeare's
> time. As in decoy.
>
> There is more but I can't find the footnote now. Anyone have OED access?     
>