Someone told me a story about their little girl who spotted a cob web in the bathroom. She flipped out and started screaming how the spider was going to come after her. Her daddy told her that it was just a cobweb and that there were no spiders and nothing would get her. Crisis averted.
She accepted that answer . . . for about two seconds . . . then she started carrying on about the "cob" was going to get her.
How do you explain thatone?
Well . . . what exactly isa cobweb? Don’t ask me why, but I always thought that a cobweb was a stringy version of a dust bunny . . . obviously I was misinformed. It is, indeed, a spider web; although, nowadays, it used describe an unoccupied and defunct one.
So, what in the heck is a cob?? Well, cob is a very old word . . . from the 16th century . . . that is synonymous with spider. It was derived from an even older word from the 14th century . . . coppe. Coppe is short for atorcoppe which is literally means ‘poison-head’.
So the little girl had every reason to freak out . . . it was possible that a cob would come and get her. EEK!
