Re[2]: [tied] Nori

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 59988
Date: 2008-09-12

At 2:58:54 AM on Friday, September 12, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 5:23:45 PM on Thursday, September 11, 2008, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

>>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
>>> <BMScott@> wrote:

[...]

>>>> I'll go with Ordbog over det Danske Sprog:

>>>> komp.-dannelse til stammen i I. Ven; egl.: "den
>>>> gunstigere" (vist opr. eufem. betegnelse for den side, der
>>>> betragtedes som den uheldige)

[...]

>>> In case you don't know, Da. vist might originally have
>>> been semantically aligned with German gewiss, but now it
>>> means something like "most likely, on the balance, I
>>> guess".

>> When it doesn't mean 'certainly'.

>> German has nothing to do with it; any interference in my
>> case would come from ON <vĂ­st> or Swedish <visst>, both
>> of which are stronger than Danish <vist>. (With Danish
>> I'm pretty careful to check the dictionary even when I
>> think that I recognize a word.)

> 'Vist' in the front field position means "of course,
> certainly", in the ODS quote it can't have any other sense
> than the one I mentioned; [...]

I surmised as much when I first read it, and I implicitly
acknowledged this when I wrote 'both of which are stronger
than Danish <vist>'. The first sentence was merely pointing
out that it hasn't entirely lost its etymological sense.

Brian