2 Comments so far

1. a13 on November 11, 2009 6:37 PM

   India today has the largest number of tigers, numbering somewhere between 3,030 and 4,735 and it is estimated that only 5,100 to 7,500 individual tigers now remain in the entire world. These remaining tigers are threatened by many factors, including growing human populations, loss of habitat, illegal hunting of tigers and the species they hunt, and expanded trade in tiger parts used for traditional medicines.

2. super b on November 11, 2009 7:23 PM

   Scot-free actually comes from scot, meaning ‘an assessment or tax’. This word is a borrowing from Old Norse, perhaps from scot ‘contribution’ or a related word scattr ‘tax; treasure’. It also seems to be related to Old English gescot ’shot’, and there is also the possibility of the influence of Old French escot, which was itself borrowed from a Germanic source. Scot is first found in this sense in the early thirteenth century.
   Scot-free originally meant ‘free from payment of scot’, a sense that is now almost totally obsolete, except in historical contexts. By extension, it came to mean ‘free from obligation, harm, punishment, or restraint’. (Yes, the idea that a tax is a punishment is a very old one.) Since the word scot on its own is now rare, most people probably interpret scot to be some sort of intensive of free.
   Scot-free, like scot itself, is first found in the thirteenth century. The broader use of the word is attested in the sixteenth century