Madam, – I greatly enjoyed Diarmaid Ó Muirithe’s column (Words We Use, February 15th) about the origin of the word abed, meaning in bed, confined to be by sickness, old age.
I remember coming across the word many years ago in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Lisa Hamilton, a strict Presbyterian, told her husband, Samuel, in no uncertain terms that it was as sinful to be abroad after dark as it was to lie abed after dawn. – Yours, etc,