Robin, you are an endless font of web wisdom!
Mark
At 04:34 PM 9/2/2007, you wrote:
>Not really a response to Peter, but related --
>for all things etymological (in case anyone hasn't come on this):
>
> http://www.indo-european.nl/index2.html
>
>"The IEED-project:
>
>The IEED project is supervised by Alexander
>Lubotsky and Robert Beekes. The aim of the project is threefold:
>
>to compile etymological databases containing the
>inherited vocabulary of various Indo-European
>branches and to publish them on the Internet;
>
>to create an Indo-European etymological database on the Internet;
>
>to compile a new Indo-European etymological
>dictionary, which will replace Julius Pokorny's
>Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Bern: Francke, 1959). "
>
>Da Rodent
>
>*****************************
>
>Peter Cudmore said:
>
>
>Attempted this earlier, in response to Robin's last, and it was rejected by
>the server, so let's try again:
>
>I think Mark's instincts are good. One worry about the OED's pronouncements
>about ancestral connections is that they are not dated, unlike the
>etymologies. So we know when a word was first used, but not when the
>dictionary's interpretation of it was formed. If the scepticism about links
>with Scandinavian cognates is say 50 years old then more recent theory might
>give cause for the scepticism to be revised. It can't all be bang up to
>date.
>
>P
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>Behalf Of Mark Weiss
>>Sent: 01 September 2007 17:22
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: Dust Bunnits
>>
>>That's Robin's conversion--don't know if it's
>>lalland or just his fertile imagination or baby talk.
>>
>>Anyway, to be slightly more coherent than I was
>>at three in the a.m., what I was suggesting is
>>that if one went back to protogermanic, that
>>mythical beast, one might find a word meaning to
>>droop or slide that gradually attracted other,
>>pejorative meanings and in some places slid down
>>the social scale and acquired gender, the
>>pejoratives associated with imagined or real
>>attributes of the poor. Tried another way,
>>neither the Duke nor Duchess of York, regardless
>>of her hygienic or sexual habits, would likely be
>>referred to as a slut in any sense circa 1400,
>>but the scullery and the stable boy and the child
>>that stayed at home in the peasant cottage down the lane might be.
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>At 11:34 AM 9/1/2007, you wrote:
>> >Hi Mark, what's with "Bunnits," as opposed to
>> >"Bunnies, " the form I grew up with?
>> >
>> >Thanks--Candice
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >--- Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Neither contact nor cognate forms, but a common
>> > > ancestry.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > At 01:00 AM 9/1/2007, you wrote:
>> > > >>Yup, the pejorative came first, before even the
>> > > >>gender applied to, but when I look at the
>> > > >>Germanic cognates
>> > >
>> > >>(http://books.google.com/books?id=Lx8B2tyuy1MC
>> > >
>> >
>>&pg=PA444&lpg=PA444&dq=slut+etymology&source=web&ots=c_Y7kYOIv4&sig=dModOQmf
>>b7
>> > 8SJs4rAOMa9GFMQgw)
>> > >
>> > > >>the sexual imputation appears in some languages
>> > > >>but not in others. Meanings in the various
>> > > >>languages: Icelandic, a heavy, loglike fellow;
>> > > >>Swedish dialect, a slut, an idler; Norwegian,
>> > > >>idler; Danish, slut; verb forms, Icel;andic and
>> > > >>Norwegian to droop, allied to Danish loose,
>> > > >>flabby. From slot-, stem of past participle of
>> > > >>Norwegian sletta, to dangle, drift, idle about.
>> > > >>Further allied to Dutch slodde, a slut, and the
>> > > >>verb to slide.Cf. Irish slaodaire, a lazy person,
>> > > from slaod, to slide.
>> > > >
>> > > >Um. Post-Skeat, we have Onions in the Oxford
>> > > >Dictionary of English Etymology saying "contact
>> > > >with Continental words similarly used and having
>> > > >the same cons[onantal] framework SL..T, cannot
>> > > >be proved" and the OED: " Forms having some
>> > > >resemblance in sound and sense also occur in the
>> > > >Scand. languages, as Da. slatte (? from LG.),
>> > > >Norw. slott, Sw. dial. slåta, but connexion is very
>> > > doubtful.]"
>> > > >
>> > > >-- which would suggest parallel or convergent
>> > > >evolution rather than cognate forms, if that's
>> > > >what you're suggesting above. Assuming the word
>> > > >doesn't come into use much before it's first
>> > > >recorded, the end of the 14thC is a bit late for
>> > > >an unidentified borrowing from another
>> > > >continental language. By then, when words are
>> > > >borrowed [I think], they tend initially to look
>> > > >very much like their form in the language they
>> > > >are borrowed from. (Which contention would be a
>> > > >bit stronger if I could think of an example.)
>> > > >
>> > > >I'm drawn towards the idea that "slut" comes in
>> > > >because there's a strong phonaesthetic framework
>> > > >around the general semantic area of glub and
>> > > >grot, similar words just begging to be added
>> > > >to. I haven't checked the date origins of the
>> > > following, but consider:
>> > > >
>> > > > slut / slattern / sloven
>> > > >
>> > > > slug / (slow) / sloth
>> > > >
>> > > > sot
>> > > >
>> > > > slubber / slobber
>> > > >
>> > > >-- given that weight of phonaesthetic
>> > > >negativity, sluts virtually have to be sluttish,
>> > > nah?
>> > > >
>> > > >>I'm assuming that the various idle, slovenly
>> > > >>meanings are earlier, and that by a process of
>> > > >>convergence the sexual and the social accreted to
>> > > the word.
>> > > >
>> > > >I'm inclined to agree, but the 50 year range in
>> > > >the OED is a narrow one, within the margin of
>> > > >error of when the word appears vs. when it's
>> > > >first recorded in print. Also, I simply picked
>> > > >up the definitions the OED gives without
>> > > >checking them against the citations themselves
>> > > >-- too much trouble at this time of night --
>> > > >which is sloppy of me, given past
>> > > >experience. But LEME did seem to concur --
>> > > >Florio is more colourful (as ever) in his range
>> > > >of synonyms for the word, but he's not untypical
>> > > >of all the writers who "define" it between
>> > > 1550-1700.
>> > > >
>> > > >>Seems to me too reasonable to be a
>> > > >>frseh-hatched folk etymology of my own, but I'm
>> > > >>aware that the best available is far short of
>> > > proof.
>> > > >
>> > > >Yup.
>> > > >
>> > > >Back to the Spital House. I'm beginning to get
>> > > >to *like that bloody poem, which is worrying.
>> > > >
>> > > >Ulp ...
>> > > >
>> > > >Robin
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>___________________________________________________________________________
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