/hw-/ > /w-/

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:29 AM -0500 2/12/07, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:
>>I wonder who came up with the terms "morpheme" and "phone" (as applied to an
>>elemental sound).
>
>The OED is your friend.
>
Tell it to Safire, who noted toward the end of yesterday's "On
Language" column:

==========
And when anticipating the surge of the politically hot word surge, I
wrote that it came from the Latin surgere, ''to rise,'' which is
correct, but speculated that it may also be the root of surgeon. Not
so; Cynthia Wolfe and a bunch of cheery folks waving scalpels pointed
out that the word comes from the Latin chirurgia, based on the Greek
kheir, ''hand.'' An antiquities dictionary defines the Greek word as
that ''which cures diseases by means of the hand,'' distinguishing
surgeons from physicians, who treat with medicines.
===========

There is to be sure a place for etymological speculation in columns
on language--linking "Cry Uncle" to the punchline of a late 19th
century joke, as in Michael Quinion's recent column, or deriving "the
whole nine yards" from Montagnard references during the Vietnam War
may qualify--but publishing an incorrect etymology that could be
easily be quashed by cracking *any* dictionary (with etymological
info) somehow doesn't strike me as mere "speculation"...

LH

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