Re: [TUHS] Boats (was: Slashes)

Johnny Billquist scripsit: Absolutely. Because when words change, they change according to common patterns specific to the language. For example, a change between Old English (OE) and Modern English (ModE) is that long-a has become long-o. Consequently, the descendants of OE bát, tá, ác are ModE boat, toe, oak. In Scots, which is also descended from OE, this change did not operate, and long-a changed in the Great Vowel Shift along with long-a from other sources, giving the Older Scots words bait, tae, eik. However, current Scots does not use bait, but rather boat, and we can see that because this breaks the pattern it must be a borrowing from English. Similarly, there are two Old Norse (ON) words for boat, bát(r) and beit. The first is the ordinary word, the second is confined to skaldic poetry. In the modern languages, we have båt (bátur in Icelandic and Faroese), which is regularly descended from the first word. But which ON word is original? The evidence is clear: beit is native, because words with á in OE regularly correspond to ei in ON. For example, OE gát (ModE goat) corresponds to geit in ON (variously geit, ged, get in the modern languages), and there are many other words following this pattern. So native beit was displaced (except in poetry) by the OE word bát, with the ON -r ending. Because English is such a prolific borrower, such false relatives appear within English itself as well. Nothing looks more obvious than a connection between the verb choose, which is as native as can be (cf. archaic German kiesen, Danish kyse, Norwegian kjose), and the noun choice. But the "oi" in choice is a dead giveaway: no native word contains it, and in fact choice is borrowed from French choix, from the French verb choisir, which is itself borrowed from some Germanic language, probably Frankish. Similarly, the d in murderer tells us that it is borrowed from late Latin or French, which borrowed it from a Continental Germanic language: the native word, still used by Shakespeare, was murtherer. OE steor 'steering oar, rudder' + bord 'side of a ship'. Parallel formations gave us common Scandinavian styrbord from ON stjórnborði, similarly Dutch stuurbord, German Steuerbord. Larboard, the other side, began life as Middle English ladde 'load' + bord, because it was the side you loaded a ship from, and was altered under the influence of starboard. Because the two were easily confused, port officially replaced it in the 19C, though it had been used in this meaning since the 16C. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org You annoy me, Rattray! You disgust me! You irritate me unspeakably! Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable temper, or I should scarcely be able to contain myself before your mocking visage. --Stalky imitating Macrea