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From: alderson@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Folk etymology (was Re: *PIE have)
In-Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org's message of Tue, 3 Dec 1996 03:34:09 GMT
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Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 19:15:11 GMT
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In article <E1tJ8y.HCL@scn.org> lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross) writes:

>In a previous article, T.Gerritsen@inter.nl.net (T.T. Gerritsen) says:

>>It shows that language comparison should result in consistent theories about
>>sound-shifts and the like, and should not be based on haphazardly taking
>>words that only superficially resemble each other.  This sort of pastime is
>>usually called 'Volksetymologie' by linguists.

>And `folk etymology' by those of us who don't *quite* make the grade.
>*And occasionally--rarely--folk etymology actually turns out to be right.

No, that's not what linguists call "Volksetymologie" (in German) or "folk
etymology" (in English).

The term "folk etymology" refers to a particular kind of non-phonological
change in which a morphologically obscure word is re-analyzed into readily
recognized parts.  One of the canonical examples of this process is the name
"sparrowgrass" for "asparagus".  The latter is completely opaque from a
morphological standpoint in English; an uncorrected mis-hearing or mis-speaking
of the word leads to creation of the lexically transparent if etymologically
incorrect form.

The use of the term "folk etymology" for untrained etymological musings is
misleading at best.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
