"troll" and other words with two mommies?

[Ben Zimmer]

Neal Whitman wrote up a nice treatment of the evolution of "troll" for
the Visual Thesaurus, which covers all of this ground:

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/youve-been-trolled/


On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 2:55 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>
> The noun troll has two senses that are connected to the verb troll as
> noted in the OED definition.
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Computing slang. A person who posts deliberately erroneous or
> antagonistic messages to a newsgroup or similar forum with the
> intention of eliciting a hostile or corrective response. Also: a
> message of this type.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Perhaps the existence of dual etyma may be related to these dual
> senses. The person who posts the message may naturally be connected to
> the notion of a troll under a bridge or a "misshapen and hidden
> figure".
>
> The message itself is easier to connect to the notion of bait. Hence,
> trolling as a fishing technique comes to mind.
>
> It is, of course,  possible to refer to a person who trolls as a
> "troller" but it seems "troll" currently predominates for this sense.
>
> Garson
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> >
> > Relevant here, I think, is Connie Eble's "Slang: Etymology, Folk
> > Etymology and Multiple Etymology" (SECOL Review 10, 1986), also
> > incorporated in _Slang & Sociability_ (1996). Connie applies Roger
> > Wescott's notion of "lexical polygenesis" to consider how "multiple
> > etymology" seems to be at play in the history of many slang items.
> > Michael Adams refers to Connie's work in _Slayer Slang_ (though he
> > prefers "mixed etymology"), and I believe Ron Butters also cites it in
> > his _Dictionaries_ paper on "X sucks."
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> I probably didn't explain myself clearly. I don't think any of these examples
> >> exhibit the same phenomenon as 'troll'. There are no end of words to which
> >> people assign distinct or conflicting etymologies. The point with 'troll' is that
> >> both etyma are simultaneously present to the contemporary speaker's mind
> >> and that each figures centrally in shaping its meaning as a "thick term," in
> >> Bernard Williams term, which both categorizes and judges--the one supplying
> >> the descriptive content ("using baited lines to catch someone" and the other
> >> its evaluative content ("a reprehensible activity conducted by a misshapen
> >> and hidden figure"). So neither could be the "right" etymology by itself in the
> >> speaker's reconstruction. Whereas no new insight is gained by imagining
> >> that 'duck/t tape" simultaneously owes part of its meaning to each of the
> >> supposed sources. And while 'ass' can be regarded as deriving from either
> >> donkeys or buttocks, and may shift its use accordingly, there's no argument!
> >> to be made that it must simultaneously be derived from both in order to mean
> >> what it does.
> >>
> >>> W Brewer=20
> >>> Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2013 17:21:03 +0800
> >>> =20
> >>> GN: <<How many other words ... that have two (or more?) distinct etyma
> >>> simultaneously present to speakers, each of which actively influences =
> >> its
> >>> meaning. >>
> >>> WB: For a punster, more than for a non-punster. Formal similarity =
> >> induces
> >>> semantic association to varying degrees in different people.
> >>> =20
> >>> ass 'donkey, fool' (Latin asinus) <=3D ass 'buttocks' (Old English =
> >> ears).
> >>> duct tape <=3D duck tape.
> >>> cache 'stash' [cash, cash-SHAY] <=3D cachet [cash-SHAY].
> >>> =20
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> =20
> >>> =20
> >>> From: Charles C Doyle=20
> >>> Sat, 5 Oct 2013 14:12:11 +0000
> >>> =20
> >>> =20
> >>> Yes, there exists a fairly extensive category of words that, =
> >>> historically, have uncertain, confused, multiple, folk, facetious, or =
> >>> otherwise recoverable or reanalyzable etymologies, available for the =
> >>> enrichment of their signification by poets and wits and (sometimes =
> >>> unconsciously) ordinary speakers.  Besides "ass" and "duct/duck tape" =
> >>> (as WB points out), there's "island."  And we may think of Milton's =
> >>> narrator's use of "astonished"/"astounded"/"stunned" in reference to the =
> >>> devils in _Paradise Lost_--recently hurled from heaven by the Almighty's =
> >>> thunderbolts.

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