The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Derrick
Oil derricks, it turns out, are named (indirectly) after someone named Derrick—not an oil man, though, but a hangman: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word (which originally referred to hangmen and gallows) comes from
Derrick, the surname of a noted hangman at Tyburn c1600.
I did not know that.
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