Re: More on Italian briga, brigare, and brigante

> > As an example of the standard of the etymology of ship types
> > http://wapedia.mobi/en/schooner
>
> It is quite believable that Wapedia does *not* represent the
> actual standard of etymology -- of ship types or anything
> else.

That has nothing to do with Wapedia. The two incompatible ingredients
appear all over the place. The better dictionaries are aware of the
contradiction, so they cover it with weasel words:

http://www.answers.com/topic/schooner
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: schooner:
'Though apparently developed from a 17th-century Dutch design...'
US History Encyclopedia: Schooner
'A schooner is a sailing vessel that, in its pure form, originated at
Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1713–1714.'
Apparently, they have some information of the Dutch origin of the ship
which they wish would go away. What that information is would be
interesting to see.

> > 'A schooner (pronounced /'sku:n&/) is a type of
> > sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft
> > sails on two or more masts. Schooners were first used by
> > the Dutch in the 16th or 17th century, and further
> > developed in North America from the early 18th century
> > onwards.'
>
> > 'According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, the first
> > ship called a schooner was built by builder Andrew
> > Robinson and launched in 1713 from Gloucester,
> > Massachusetts. Legend has it that the name schooner was
> > the result of a spectator exclaiming "Oh how she scoons",
> > scoon being a Scots word meaning to skip or skim over the
> > water. Robinson replied, "A schooner let her be." [1]
> > According to Walter William Skeat, the term schooner comes
> > from the word scoon, while the sch spelling comes from the
> > later adoption of the Dutch and German spellings.'
>
> > Which makes one wonder what the Dutch called their
> > schooners, before the Americans gave it a Scots name and
> > spelled in the Dutch fashion?
>
> OED:
>
> Of uncertain origin; recorded early in the 18th c. as
> skooner, scooner; the present spelling, which occurs only
> a few years later, may be due to form-association with
> school, or with Du. words having initial sch. The word has
> passed from English into most of the European langs.: Du.
> schooner, schoener, G. schoner, schooner, schuner
> (recorded 1786), F. schooner, schoaner, Da. skonnert, Sw.
> skonare, skonert.
>
> The story commonly told respecting the origin of the word
> is as follows. When the first schooner was being launched
> (at Gloucester, Mass., about 1713), a bystander exclaimed
> 'Oh, how she scoons!' The builder, Capt. Andrew Robinson,
> replied, 'A scooner let her be!' and the word at once came
> into use as the name of the new type of vessel. The
> anecdote, first recorded, on the authority of tradition,
> in a letter of 1790 (quoted in Babson Hist. Gloucester, p.
> 252), looks like an invention. The etymology which it
> embodies, however, is not at all improbable, though there
> seems to be a lack of evidence for the existence of the
> alleged New England verb scoon or scun, 'to skim along on
> the water'. Cf. Sc. (Clydesdale) scon, 'to make flat
> stones skip along the surface of the water', also intr.
> 'to skip in the manner described' (Jam.). The early
> examples afford strong ground for believing that the word
> really originated about 1713 in Massachusetts, and
> probably in the town of Gloucester. The evidence of two or
> three old prints seems to prove that the type of vessel
> now called 'schooner' existed in England in the 17th c.,
> but it app. first came into extensive use in New England.
>
> Quite possibly the Dutch had none, or did not differentiate
> this as a distinct type.

We won't know until we know what is behind the information that the
Dutch used the type in the 16th or 17th century.

Quite possibly it is a Dutch dialect word (not that I can quote one)
for a type of ship also used by Dutch colonists and Capt. Robinson was
good at advertising.


Torsten