Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

At 4:35:07 AM on Friday, June 13, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

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

>> At 5:16:49 PM on Thursday, June 12, 2008, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

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

>>>> At 1:38:41 PM on Thursday, June 12, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

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

>>>>>> At 4:47:34 AM on Thursday, June 12, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

>>>>>>> As for couch grass, that must be related to a
>>>>>>> different root eg. *gWih3w- "live" (cf. Da.
>>>>>>> 'kvikgræs' "couch grass", or something else, is
>>>>>>> 'couch' related?)

>>>>>> This <couch> is. Couch grass is also quitch grass,
>>>>>> and <quitch> directly continues OE <cwice>; <couch>
>>>>>> seems originally to have represented /kutS/, so the
>>>>>> development must have been something like /wi/ > /uj/
>>>>>> > /u/. It's also quick grass, twitch (with the
>>>>>> opposite development from that seen in German quer <
>>>>>> OHG twerh), and in the U.S. quack grass.

>>>>> I've seen that development recently in a bid to
>>>>> explain river Dvina -> German Düna; supposedly LG has
>>>>> swester -> süster too (Du. zuster, Sw. syster, Da.
>>>>> søster), I thought myself of Dutch zoet /zu:t/, LG
>>>>> soet /sö:t/, German süss, Sw söt, Da. sød "sweet". But
>>>>> those distribution 1) don't match geographically with
>>>>> each other, 2) or with any other known major.

>>>> So? Stress shift in diphthongs is hardly an unusual
>>>> occurrence.

>>> I didn't claim that shift in diphthongs is an unusual
>>> occurrence. Perhaps you should read the paragraph again.

>> Perhaps you should explain yourself more clearly: I now
>> have no idea what point you were trying to make with that
>> paragraph.

> That geographical boundaries of application of the /wi/ >
> /u:/ or /ü:/ rule, which you classify and refer to as a
> 'stress shift in diphthongs' do not correspond to the
> geographical boundaries of any other phonological rule in
> Germanic that I'm aware of. It divides (wrt. 'sister')
> Germanic into English, Dutch, North Germanic (application
> of the rule) vs. High German (non-application of the
> rule),

But it's OE <sweostor>, <swustor>, etc., whence ME <soster>,
<suster>, etc.; <sister> is influenced by ON. As for NGmc.,
there's an early runic <swestar>. The <y> of <systir> seems
to be from the nom.pl. <systr>, from *<swistiR> (cf. ON
<sykn> 'schuldlos, straffrei' and Goth. <swikns> 'rein,
unschuldig, keusch'). These losses of /w/ are independent
local developments.

> and (wrt. 'sweet') into Dutch, Low German, North
> Germanic (application of the rule) vs. English, High
> German (non-application of the rule),

There is no /wi/ here: it's PGmc. *swo:tja-. MDu. has
<soete, suete> from OSax. <swôti>.

> and apparently the reflexes of the grass name has
> instances in English both with ('couch') and without
> ('quitch', 'quick').

This <couch> is obviously a late local development.

> Therefore I suspected that these words might not be
> directly inherited, but loaned at some time.

And didn't bother to do even the most elementary checking.

>>>>> Further, if there were any truth to this supposed
>>>>> Inguaeonic *k > ts,

>>>> What on earth are you talking about? There is no *k > ts
>>>> in quitch > twitch (or anywhere else in the quoted post).

>>> I didn't claim that either. I think you might have
>>> missed this paragraph:

>>> 'Die Formen mit -k- und -ts-, -tsch-, -ss- gehören über
>>> "ingwäonische" Sibilierung des -k- zusammen, trotz A.
>>> Lasch, Palatales 'k' 278 A. 4, wonach sich nd. quitz
>>> nicht sicher auf -k- zurückführen lasse.'

>> Since you included none of that long quotation in your
>> response to me, I assumed that you *were* responding to
>> me, so of course I did not look back and wade through the
>> quotation to see whether something there might possibly
>> be relevant to your comment.

> The natural response when you see a key word like
> 'Inguaeonic' and it doesn't occur in the six lines above
> it in the posting would be to go back and scan earlier
> postings to try to locate it there.

I assumed that you had snipped competently and were merely
being a bit cryptic, as you often are.

> I know I would have. I might possibly have overestimated
> your proficiency in German ('wading through') so I'll
> translate the relevant parts for you in the future.

Don't put yourself out: I'd have used 'wading through' even
if it had been in English. German slows me down only a
little. (It's French that really slows me down: mine's very
rusty, and for some reason I've never cared for the
language.)

> And BTW, writing with the implicit assumption that I'm an
> idiot who makes references to something which doesn't
> occur in earlier postings ('whether something there might
> possibly be relevant') might harass me, but remember
> there's an audience too, and using those barroom antics in
> discussion hardly earns you points with them.

You mistake my intent altogether: as I said above, I thought
it much likelier that I was failing to understand a
self-contained post than that you were referring to
something that you'd snipped. In other words, I was
assuming that you were *not* foolish, discourteous, or
clumsy enough to have snipped something to which you wanted
to refer.

Brian