<div dir="ltr"><h1 id="pagetitle" style="margin:0px 0px 4px 9px;padding:0px;font-weight:normal;line-height:1.2em;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;clear:both"><font color="#000000">Here is what my OED tells me about the etymology, which is uncertain but does seem to support a link:</font></h1>
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<span class=""><span class="">lark</span>, <span class="" style="font-style:italic">v.<span class="" style="vertical-align:text-top">2</span></span></span></h1><div class="" id="entryPageContent" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-size:1.3em;line-height:1.5em;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif">
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</ul></div></div><div class="" id="eid39741042" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;clear:left;overflow:hidden;width:522.59375px;line-height:1.6em"><strong style="float:left;display:block;line-height:25px">Pronunciation:</strong> <a class="" id="pronunciationLink" rel="39741044" style="color:rgb(91,133,177)">/<span class="" style="line-height:25px;font-size:1.083em;color:black;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode','Arial Unicode MS',arial,sans-serif">lɑːk</span>/</a></div>
<div class="" id="eid39741045" style="margin:0px 1em 0.2em 0.7em;padding:0px"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><strong>Etymology:</strong> Belongs to <a href="http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/105877#eid39740766" class="" rel="105877" rev="/view/Entry/105877#eid39740766" id="c16" style="color:rgb(91,133,177);text-decoration:none"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-variant:small-caps">lark</span> <span class="" style="font-style:italic">n.<span style="vertical-align:text-top;font-size:0.6em">2</span></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2">; the noun and verb appear first in 1811–3. The origin is somewhat uncertain.<p style="margin:15px 0px 0px;padding:0px">
Possibly it may represent the northern <a class="" rev="/view/Entry/105171#eid39907331" rel="105171" href="http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/105171#eid39907331" style="color:rgb(91,133,177);text-decoration:none"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-variant:small-caps">lake</span> <span class="" style="font-style:italic">v.<span style="vertical-align:text-top;font-size:0.6em">1</span></span></span></a>, as heard by sporting men from Yorkshire jockeys or grooms; the sound <a class="" id="pronunciationLink" rel="39741057" style="color:rgb(91,133,177)">/<span class="">lɛək</span>/ </a><a class="" id="pronunciationLink" rel="39741058" style="color:rgb(91,133,177)">/<span class="">læək</span>/ </a>, which is written <em>lairk</em> in Robinson's <em>Whitby Glossary</em> and in dialect books, would to a southern hearer more naturally suggest ‘lark’ than ‘lake’ as its equivalent in educated pronunciation. On the other hand, it is quite as likely that the word may have originated in some allusion to <a class="" rev="/view/Entry/105876#eid39739718" rel="105876" href="http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/105876#eid39739718" style="color:rgb(91,133,177);text-decoration:none"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-variant:small-caps">lark</span> <span class="" style="font-style:italic">n.<span style="vertical-align:text-top;font-size:0.6em">1</span></span></span></a>; compare the similar use of <em>skylark</em> verb, which is found a few years earlier (1809).</p>
</span></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Toni McNaron <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mcnar001@umn.edu" target="_blank">mcnar001@umn.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">I agree with Michael Davis in that both the bird and the playful gaminess is going on in the reference. I also think about the fact that larks, when they flourished, were often the very first birds to greet the dawn, hence they were seen as excited about another day in which they could make beautiful music, fly around, eat bugs, etc. So a imagine larks as exuberant, hence perhaps how the verb "to lark" came into existence in the first place.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
Toni McNaron</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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