Okay - please tell me why I can say...

[tearinghairout]

"I walked gingerly across the rotten floorboards..."
but can't say: "I was a bit ginger about walking across the rotten boards..." ?

Is it 'cos it would be gingerist?

[witchandchips]

my guess is that the meaning of gingerly (the adverb) has mutated away from the meaning of ginger (the adjective). So the gingerly means cautious and ginger means red headed. The other possibility is that gingerly as actually from the noun ginger (the spice)

[witchandchips]

see dictionary.reference.com/browse/gingerly it looks as though ginger and gingerly actually have different routes

[SaintGeorge]

Gingerly is from the Latin root genitus meaning ?born? or ?begotten? (past participle of gignere, to beget)

If you were well bred you trod softly, whereas common oiks I assume thumped around in a more elephantine fashion.

Not connected to ginger.

[tearinghairout]

So, I can say that I'm feeling delicate, or I'm being careful, but I can't say I'm feeling/being ginger because it now means something else? But I bet it never did exist in that sense (the same as the adverb 'gingerly')!

[tearinghairout]

Ooh, what a brilliant link Witchandchips, it's even got all the foreign translations. I shall amuse myself for days on there!

SainGeorge, I bow to your superior intelligence

[SaintGeorge]

Ginger is from Zingiberaceae, different root ('scuse the pun)

Arf. Superior googling talents more like

[SaintGeorge]

Oh, and I am married to a Ginger (hard 'g') so have had this conversation before .

[tearinghairout]

Implying laziness on my part? Am I to infer that you are implying I is lazy?? (This recalls an old office argument discussion about imply/infer)

Anyway, so I can't legitimately go round saying 'I feel a bit ginger' about anything then?

[tearinghairout]

Oh no St George, come back! It's nice here, really it is. Have a choccy biccy, we can't afford to lose you...

[SaintGeorge]

[tearinghairout]

"See you soon!"

[SaintGeorge]

Oh I did it again

[tearinghairout]

Can understand why you're a bit ginger cautious about Pedants' Corner, but we have ginger nobs as well as the choccy ones, you know

Anyway, gotta go, the dog needs walking.

"Come on, Ginger..."

Sorry. Am not gingerist. Am NOT.