'Edge'og [was: Re: Clueless roolz...]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

>
> Rick McCallister pisze:
>
> > No chance it could be a folk etymology? I'm assuming
> > there were hedgehogs in the British Isles before the
> > 15th century.
>
> Funny. I used to take it for granted that <hedgehog> was a
> folk-etymological rationalisation of something related to
> *h1eg^Hjo-. I no longer think so. The OE reflex of *h1eg^Hjo-
> would have been +icg, and there's no evidence at all for such a
> word.

But if you add a NWBlock *-ok, as found in other English animal
names, you get *id3ok-. That's a good start for a folk-etymology.

> If you've ever heard hedgehogs doing their usual grunts and
> snuffles in a shrubbery, their modern English name becomes
> self-explanatory.

Folk-etymologies often are.


Torsten