trap- [Re: Androphobia sucks]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <gs001ns@...> wrote:

> Then German "trapp, trapp!" > trappen > trappeln, trippeln;
> Treppe belong to this group. Does also the bird "Trappe"?
> Slavic drop, drop(l)(j)a, Rum. dropia. It runs in the fields
> in a way for which the German verbs trappeln and trippeln
> [a Neuhochdeutsch "remake" of trappeln] would fit.

Not impossible. To be sure, English <bustard> comes, via Old French
<bistarde> ~ <oustarde>, from learned Latin <avis tarda>, often
translated at face value as 'slow bird'. However, a bustard can zip
along as nimbly as any roadrunner, so quite possibly <tarda> was
originally a noun (the bird's specific name) and 'slow' is just a
folk-etymological misinterpretation.

Piotr