03.20.05
Posted in Etymology, General at 10:25 pm by Mithridates
I watched a bit of a really ridiculous movie Sunday night, and the protagonists attacking in formation (I always root for the fish) reminded me of the controversy surrounding the etymology of the word shark. The OED, noting the obscurity of its origin, suggests that:
The word seems to have been introduced by the sailors of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Hawkins’s expedition, who brought home a specimen which was exhibited in London in 1569. The source from which they obtained the word has not been ascertained. Cf. Ger. dial. (Austrian) schirk sturgeon …
The conjecture of Skeat that the name of the fish is derived from SHARK v.1 is untenable; the earliest example of the vb. is c 1596, and the passage alludes to the fish.
I recall having read that the word actually derived from a Mayan word for the fish, xoc - I’m not sure where the suggestion was (in A Forest of Kings, by Linda Schele and David Freidel?). I always thought it odd that the loan would occur so late for a fish that English mariners must have encountered at some point.
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02.19.05
Posted in Etymology, General, History, Language at 10:59 am by Mithridates
The variety of Catalan spoken on the island of Minorca is called Menorquí; unsurprisingly, the dialect spoken on Mallorca is known as Mallorquí. Here are some short prayers in Mallorquí, and here are some phrases. Menorquí still shows the influence of English from the eighteenth century, when England owned the island. Some easily interpreted examples are grevi, bifi, and plumqueque - all foodstuffs, belying the reputation of English cuisine. There are other differences as well; for example, Spanish el, which in Catalan is els, is es.
The capital, Mahon (Sp. Mahón Men. Maó), gave its name to mayonnaise, supposedly created in honor of the Duc de Richelieu’s capture of the city in 1756 during the Seven Years War. The name of the island itself, meaning “little one” dates from Roman times and contrasts with Mallorca, “big one.” The Phoenicians had referred to it as Nura, the island of Fire, and the Greeks as Meloussa, the island of Cattle.
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02.16.05
Posted in Etymology, General, Rabbits at 8:01 pm by Mithridates
According to the OED, the word rabbit has a northern French origin, as can be seen in the Walloon robett, showing up in Middle English as rabet. It might be related to Fr. rabouillère, the burrow in which kits are raised. Its first documented appearance English is in John de Trevisa’s translation of De proprietatibus rerum:
Conynges..bringeþ forþe many rabettes & multiplieþ ful swiþe.
Interestingly, this sentence contains an early appearance another word for rabbit, cony (first documented a century earlier than rabbit), which comes from Latin cuniculus, rabbit or underground passage. In this case, the quotation shows how older rabbits were called coneys, while rabbit referred to younger animals.
An alternate spelling, coney, shows that Coney Island was once overrun by rabbits. The Dutch originally called it Konijn Eiland, which became Conyne Island, and then the modern Coney Island. There are some sparse references to it as Congu, which suggests the possibility of an alternate derivation.
Lastly, a coney is a conman’s gull. Thus, this picture shows a cony getting ready to fleece a coney.
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