--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Of course IE snakes could be "emanations of the principle of
crookedness" or creepy-crawly snakehood, but in that case derivatives
of *serp- 'to wind, be crooked, creep' were used, hence Lat. serpent-
, Gk. herpet- and Skt. sarpa-. CVC roots are almost never nasal-
infixed, so {h2engWH-} or the like would have to be treated as an
unalysable whole. Well, I'm not aware of such a verb root, whatever
its supposed meaning. On the other hand, the i-stem *h2ongWHis could
be adjectival, so maybe the root from which it was formed had been
lost. {h2eng^-} 'squeeze, tighten' does exist, but as I said its
association with serpents is at best folk-etymological.
>
> Piotr
>
>
>
Even I know that a serpent is something that serps. But...
"Man må sno sig, sagde ålen(, den lå på stegependen)"
"You have to [twist, wind, make shady deals] said the eel (, it was
lying in the frying pan)".
(Danish saying)
There´s your verb root (ON snúa).
And I wasn't thinking of just creepy-crawliness, but something more
destructive.
Torsten