Re: An odd etymology

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

> At 7:09:21 AM on Tuesday, May 18, 2004, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > One more thing about Greek <pelekus> "axe" etc: English
> > has <pole-axe>, which has nothing to do with a pole.
>
> Indeed; it's a 'head-axe' (<poll> 'crown of the head').

And my beef is with semantics: what would one need a 'head axe' for?

>
> > Danish has <bol-økse>, which has little to do with <bol>
> > "tree trunk".
>
> Middle Danish had <polöxe>, according to the OED, from MLG
> <polexe>. The 'head' word appears to exist (or have
> existed) at least in English, Dutch, Low German, Swedish
> (dialect), and Danish (<puld>) [OED s.v. <poll>].
>

Danish <puld> is used of hats (that part which isn't the brim). Did
hatters need special axes?

> > Imitating Vennemann's method, I think I'll propose that
> > these two words are folk etymology reinterpretations of
> > the original, corresponding to <pelekus> etc.
>
> That would require at least two stages of folk
> etymologizing.
>

Not if the original vacillated between *p-l-/*bh-l-, Nordwestblock
etc *p-l-/*b-l-

> > Is the stressed suffix (also in Engl. <moráss>, Da.
> > <morads>, supposedly from Germanic *mar(a)-isko > Fr
> > marais) then much older?
>
> The immediate source is Middle Dutch, which got it from Old
> French. OFr <maresc>, <mareis> will have had stress on the
> final syllable; all that's required is for the borrowings to
> have preserved the final stress.
>

I know that's the standard version. For it to have been
Nordwestblock, that language can't have been exclusively first-
syllable stressing.

Torsten