On 2006-10-15 18:35, Carl Hult wrote:
> Try is one of my favourite words and a mysterious one. According to
> www.etymonline.com try is a french word:
>
> c.1300, "examine judiciously, sit in judgment of," from Anglo-Fr. trier
> (c.1290), from O.Fr. trier "to pick out, cull" (12c.), from
> Gallo-Romance *triare, of unknown origin.
>
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=try
>
> I don´t doubt any of this but isn´t there any knowledge of this word
> before the 13th century?
[Moderator's note: Let me post the following reply on behalf of our
member Ton Sales, who because of technical problems connected with
re-subscription has been unable to do so himself. Let's hope Ton will
soon join the discussion. -- Piotr]
The late Catalan Chicago etymologist Joan Coromines found ‘triar’ in
13th-century Catalan and considered the word problematic. He put forward
the hypothesis that it might come from vulgar Latin *destriare, a
presumably farming term meaning to ‘to keep grooves separate’, from
Latin stria (= groove --and also crack, cleft, line) and that the
initial des- might have been misanalyzed as a prefix. Whence the ‘triar’
we find in Catalan and Provençal (also French trier) at about the same
time, with the common meaning of ‘(to) distinguish / separate [or rather
‘keep separate’] / select’. <>
The idea might be true, considering that ‘triar’ is very much alive in
present-day Catalan as a perfect synonym for ‘elegir’, ‘seleccionar’ or
‘escollir’, in all contexts.
All the same, the postverbal ‘tria’ is interchangeably used (with an
emphasis on the distinguishing operation being done accurately) for
‘selecció’ and, in book contexts, ‘antologia’. <>
That Coromines’s idea might be true is reinforced by the existence and
common everyday use of ‘destriar’ (corresponding to Coromines’s
hypothesised vulgar Latin word) in today’s Catalan, where it means ‘(to)
find or make precise, careful distinctions’, the implication being that
there are two things/concepts that are hard to distinguish or separate
and the ‘(des)triar’ operation, always requiring some
attentional/intellectual effort, takes them apart for separate
manipulation/consideration. <>
In restricted contexts (e.g. farming) ‘triar’ also means ‘(to) separate
grain from chaff’ (as in threshing) or, more generally, ‘(to) sift’.
What is clearly lacking in Catalan (ans also in Provençal) is the ‘test’
or ‘judge’ sense it acquired in Anglo-Norman ‘trier’ and, subsequently,
in English ‘try’. (This latter development parallels the shift of Greek
krinein ---and also Latin (dis)cernere--- from meaning ‘(to) separate,
distinguish, ponder carefully about’ to meaning, more formally, ‘(to)
judge’.) <>
Coromines’s hypothesis seems to make sense both in semantic and
phonological terms. It reconciles the basic senses of the word and
avoids phonetical difficulties as a Latin tritare morphing implausibly,
in all three languages, into ‘triar’.
Ton Sales