Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

At 8:51:55 AM on Thursday, June 5, 2008, Carl Hult wrote:

> We all know what folk etymology is and how it works. Today
> I will add another word to the list, scientist´s
> etymology. The distinction between scientist's etymology
> and scientific etymology is that the former is where the
> facts are being doctored to fit the the theory, based on
> an assumption made by the scientist rather than letting
> facts speak for themselves. I also call this wishful
> thinking. Examples of scientist's etymology are butter,
> church, rush and cheese.

> The first word, butter, may be a close call since the
> greeks actually had a word called boutyron, lit.
> "cowcheese" but I still feel that this is wishful thinking
> on the linguist's part. The greeks didn't use butter in
> the same way other people in Europe did and if ever, the
> greeks got this word from elsewhere, not giving it away to
> other languages. It may even be a folk etymology word in
> Greece, adapted to fit the notion of "cow cheese"

The chain from Gk. <boúturon> to Lat. <butyrum> to e.g. OE
<butere> looks pretty straightforward.

> Church is one of the "holy" words in etymology. Once
> attested in greek, "kyriakon doma", and it's enough to
> send the linguists to seventh heaven.

From the OED s.v. <church>:

[T]here is now a general agreement among scholars in
referring it to the Greek word <ku:riakón>, properly adj.
'of the Lord, dominicum, dominical' (f. <kú:rios> lord),
which occurs, from the 3rd century at least, used
substantively (sc. <dô:ma>, or the like) = 'house of the
Lord', as a name of the Christian house of worship. Of
this the earliest cited instances are in the Apostolical
Constitutions (II. 59), a 300, the edict of Maximinus
(303-13), cited by Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. IX. 10) a 324,
the Councils of Ancyra 314 (Canon 15), Neo-Cæsarea 314-23
(Can. 5), and Laodicea (Can. 28). Thenceforward it appears
to have been in fairly common use in the East: e.g.,
Constantine named several churches built by him <kuriaká>
(Eusebius De Laud. Const. xvii).

The article further discusses how the Gk. name might have
entered WGmc.

> Well, this phrase was written well before there even was a
> missionary mission among the germanic peoples

One would certainly hope so, since WGmc. apparently acquired
the word rather early.

> and only in terms of the lord taking a seat in the holy
> building. I'm sorry, this isn't evidence enough. If ever
> the germanic word for church comes from another source it
> would certainly come from a celtic one, meaning circle
> where sacrosanct rites were being conducted. Most
> historians in a club where I am a member agree with me on
> this.

Evidently they are not linguists.

[...]

> Cheese is another golden calf in the world of etymology.
> "Such luck that latin had caseus. Now we can wrestle the
> germanic words to fit the theory that the word for hard
> cheese came from the latin word!" The celtic languages has
> this word too and I do believe reading something about the
> celts being the first in Europe to make hard cheese...

Early Irish <cáise>, like the WGmc. words, is an early
borrowing of Latin <ca:seus>. Derivation of the WGmc. words
from an early loan from Latin isn't problematic (apart from
the odd case of WSax. <cy:se>). Your emphasis on 'hard'
seems quite arbitrary.

Brian